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Fall of Angels - Modesitt








Fall
of Angels



By 

L.
E. Modesitt, Jr.

Copyright
© 1996





For David Hartwell

Who was willing to look at
something different from the beginning



 

 

INITIAL CHARACTERS

Crew of the United Faith Forces’ frigate WINTERLANCE

  
RYBA     Captain, also a Sybran
nomad

   NYLAN    Chief
Engineer, half Sybran

   SARYN   
Second Pilot, half Sybran

   AYRLYN   Communications
Officer, non-Sybran

   GERLICH  Weapons Officer,
Sybran, nonnomad

   MERTIN   Logistics
Officer, Sybran, nonnomad

 

Marines attached to the WINTERLANCE

   FIERRAL  Commanding Officer

   BERLIS

   CESSYA

   DENALLE

   DESINADA

   ELLYSIA

   FRELITA

   HULDRAN

   ISTRIL

   JASEEN   Also a combat
medtech

   KADRAN

   KYSEEN

   LLYSELLE

   MRAN

   RIENADRE

   SELITRA

   SHERIZ

   SIRET

   STENTANA

   WEBLYA

   WEINDRE

 

 

Part I - THE FALL

 

 

I

 

“THERE WERE ANGELS in Heaven in those days, and
there were demons, and the demons were the creators and the creation of
chaos…

 

   “In that distant battle between
the fires of the demons and the ice lances of the angels, the very
skies twisted in upon themselves, and the angels, who came from cold
Heaven, were cast down and strewn across the stars.

 

   “Those angels, the first and
last from far Heaven, when they found the world, knew not where they
were, nor could they see even the stars from whence they had come. And
they descended unto the Roof of the World.

 

   “There they built the Citadel
of the Winds, the tower called Black, with those chained lightnings yet
they had retained, carving unto themselves a high refuge and a reminder
of their past.

 

   “So as they had come, so
earlier had come those from the lands and heritage of the demons, and
those were men who believed not that women should wear blades nor speak
their minds and thoughts.

 

   “In the time of that first
summer came armsmen, inspired by the demons, and there were battles
across the Roof of the World, and blood…

 

   “Thus continued the conflict
between order and chaos, between those who would force order and those
who would not, and between those who followed the blade and those who
followed the spirit.

 

   “Of the great ones were the
angel Ryba, Nylan of the forge of order and the fires of Heaven, Saryn
of the dark blades of death, and Ayrlyn of the
songs…”

        
Book of Ayrlyn

        
Section I

        
[Restricted Text]

 

 

II

 

“WHAT ARE YOU going to do when you get back to
Heaven? Visit your family?” asked Saryn in a low voice,
barely audible above the hiss of the ventilators. As second pilot, she
had control of the Winterlance while the captain dozed in the command
couch. Saryn’s eyes were glazed, her mind half on the
neuronet.

   “I’ll probably think
about that when the time comes. Might be a long time,”
pointed out Nylan. “Headquarters has extended all flight
officers’ tours another two years.” The
engineer’s thoughts flicked across the power net, only a
section of the full neuronet, as he answered.

   “Why don’t they just
say that we’re stuck until we drive the demons out?”

   “Top angels-excuse me, Cherubim
and Seraphim- express their commands more temperately.” Nylan
cleared his throat. “Where are we headed?”

   Saryn expressed a mental shrug through
the net. “I’ve got the coordinates, but the captain
didn’t say why. We’re positioning for an underspace
jump, and awaiting further orders.”

   ALLNET CALL! ALLNET CALL!

   As the neuronet alert jabbed through his
thoughts, Nylan stiffened and glanced around the bridge of the United
Faith Forces’ frigate Winterlance.

   Ryba-the captain-hit the net so quickly,
her thoughts cold and clear across the neuronet, that Nylan wondered if
she had ever been asleep.

   At times like these, the engineer
wondered if he ever really had known the captain. He knew that she
drove herself, that she spent hours in high-gee exercise, that she knew
and practiced not only unarmed martial combat, but even the antique
twin sword exercises of Heaven’s Sybran horse nomads-and that
the blades on her stateroom wall were razor sharp and had sharpened
points as well. Then, she had been raised in the nomad heritage where
women fought and commanded-and she did command.

   Nylan stifled a yawn and eased fully into
the net, catching the last of the on-line feed.

   “… line two to be
led and coordinated by UFFS Winterlance… line three to be
led by UFFS Stormsweep. Action will commence at 1343
standard…”

   “Shit.. ”The
contemptuous word that floated unattached through the net came from
Saryn, who had just released the conn to Ryba, although Saryn had
stayed linked to catch the incoming message.

   “Right enough,”
affirmed the captain, her tone not quite sardonic. “Twelve
towers, and only fifty of us, and half are destroyers with barely
adequate D-draws.”

   Saryn stood, wiggling her fingers. Then
she tried to massage her neck with her left hand before settling back
into her couch and trying to rest while Ryba reoriented the Winterlance
prior to setup for the underspace jump prior to the attack.

   With a deep breath, Nylan stretched. The
engineer could check the files for the whole message, but the captain
had it, and he knew enough-more than enough. The demons had a picket
line of towers across the transit corridor, with webs into the
underspace that would effectively cut the United Faith Alliance in two.

   The damned towers that drew power from
who knew where and how were almost invulnerable-almost. Except when
enough de-energization was concentrated on the nexus points in their
energy links, and then the entire line went up into pure energy. Most
of the time, though, it was the angel ships that went up in energy.

   The towers had to be hard to build,
because there were only about fifty known to exist. That still meant
enough to quarter the UFA and to disrupt trade and communications
totally.

   “Engines…
interrogative fusactor status.” The captain’s
inquiry burned into Nylan’s thoughts.

   The engineer suppressed his annoyance.
Ryba could have dropped into the power subnet easily enough; it
wasn’t as though the Winterlance were anywhere close to jump
or combat yet. He slipped deeper into the system and ran through the
checks, then pulsed the summary to her.

   “Thank you, engines. Power net
looks good.”

   Nylan straightened in the couch and
watched as the captain studied the displays-the ones spread across the
front of the cockpit, and those in her mind. Her thoughts flicked
through the Winterlance’s neuronet, making course
adjustments, tweaking the power flow from the twin fusactors, and
studying, again and again, the icy images of the demon ships of the
Rationalists.

   “Lots of power there,
Ryba,” observed the wiry white-blond engineer from his third
seat. His unvocalized words flowed through the neuronet to her.

   “I wish you two would speak
aloud. All those empathetic overtones mess up the net.”
Ayrlyn, the comm officer, took a deep breath, although her words were
also unspoken, flowing through the net with ice-burning overedges.

   Empathetic overtones? Just because they
occasionally slept together? Nylan glanced sideways to the fourth seat
where the brunette sat, her thoughts restricted to the commnet, as she
monitored everything from standing wave to demon frequencies.

   “Net’s
faster.” Ryba’s no-nonsense words snapped across
the net with their own burning edges.

   Nylan winced and decided to check the
power subnet again.

   “Ten till jump. Time adjustment
will be negative five for sync.”

   The engineer moistened his lips. Backtime
twists out of jumps seemed to give the angel ships an advantage, but
the power requirements on the fusactors meant they had to be rebuilt
almost every third sortie, and eight units was the max backtime
possible for an angel cruiser. The destroyers could go ten, but their
underspace mass drag was less. So were their shields.

   A negative five meant the force would
contain at least one heavy cruiser, with three to five de-energizer
draws. That also meant trouble.

   “Trouble…”
As if to confirm Nylan’s concerns, Ayrlyn added the single
word verbally.

   “Weapons…
interrogative D-status.”

   “De-energizers are ready,
Captain.” Both Gerlich’s voice and “net
voice” came across as a smooth deep baritone, smooth as the
man himself, unusually so for a full Sybran. Of the ship’s
officers, half were full-blood Sybran-Ryba, Gerlich, and Mertin-big,
broad-shouldered, and, despite their size, most at home in the chill of
the high latitudes of cold Sybra. Ayrlyn was mostly Svennish, and Saryn
and Nylan were about half and half.

   “Interrogative mass
distribution.”

   “Within parameters,
Captain.” Mertin squeaked, despite his size, both in person
and on the net, perhaps because he was barely out of the Institute.

   The time clicked by silently as the
Winterlance hurled toward her underspace jump point, as the dozens of
other angel ships converged on that same jump point.

   “Stand by for jump.”

   “Engines, standing
by.”

   “Comm, standing
by…”

   The acknowledgments flicked across the
net, sequentially yet instantaneously.

   “Jump…
NOW!”

   The Winterlance dropped underspace, with
a rush of golden glory, as though on spread wings, that instant of
pain/ecstasy enduring forever, yet gone before it had begun…

  … then realspace slammed tight
around the cruiser.

   The rep screen flared bright with the
images of nearly fifty angel ships, arrow-wedged toward the glittering
line of light held together by the mirror tower ships of the demons.

   Nylan could sense the dark image of a
trapped angel transport, an insect struggling futilely in the web of
energy, struggling with full drives, with shields, yet unraveling into
dust and energy in the instants after the angel force dropped toward
the demon mirror line-that impossible energy web that stretched across
seemingly empty space to snare any angel ship within light-years, in
real or in underspace.

   “Full shields. Everything you
can get me, Nylan.”

   “Yes, ser.” -
“Begin overlap… now!”

   “Full shields in place,
Captain.” Nylan dropped himself down through the net
practically to the individual flux level, to smooth the energy flows,
and to develop maximum power for both screens and propulsion fields.

   At the same time, he had to fight the
feedback created by the overlapped shields of the cruisers flanking the
Winter-lance. On the right was the Polarflow, on the left the Deepchill.

   The Polar/low’s engineer was
either rough or new, or both, and the power fluctuations from the ship
created unnecessary energy eddies across the entire shared shield,
eddies that fed back into the Winterlance’s powernet.

   “Smooth your fields,
three!” snapped Ryba over the command net. Three was the
Polarflow, and Nylan nodded.

   The worst of the energy fluctuations
smoothed, but Nylan shook his head. The other engineer just
didn’t have the touch, and nothing except experience would
give it to him or her. The problem was that the demons
wouldn’t give that much time, either, before the mirror
towers lashed the fluctuations into energy storms whose feedback would
rip the Polarflow apart.

   The representational screen showed the
first line of angel ships, the destroyers, sweeping
“down” toward the picket line of light.

   “One, close up.”

   Ryba’s commands seemed distant
as Nylan, his senses deep in the power subnet, merged the fusactor
flows into an eddy-free flow.

   “Line two… begin
D-sweep at my mark. Five, four, three, two… MARK!”

   The darkness of the ordered shields of
the second line deepened as the cruisers accelerated toward the tower
ship pickets, a darkness all the more profound for its depth, a depth
that radiated the smoothed harmony of merged energies.

   A blinding line of light flared through
the screens, through Nylan’s mind, shivering him to the tips
of the nerves in fingertips and toes, and leaving his eyes watering.

   When his mind cleared, long before his
eyes, he could sense through the net that that blinding line of light
from the tower ships had shattered the first line of attacking angel
forces, nearly a dozen fast destroyers.

   Still, without so much as a flicker in
the overlapping screens, the Winterlance, and the second line, dropped
its darkness toward the mirror-lights of the demons, and Ryba squared
the ship on its tower-shattering course.
“De-energizers.”

   “Charging,” came
Gerlich’s affirmation across the net. The screens of the
Rationalists’ tower ships flared and merged, creating a
shimmering wall that seemed to reflect all electronic signals and
visual images back through the Winterlance’s neuronet.

   Ryba winced as the signals knifed through
her skull; Nylan dropped off the top level of the net. So did Ayrlyn.
“Activate D-one.” The captain’s thoughts
were cold, even though Nylan knew she trembled in the command couch,
even as the combined signals of the angels’ fleets and the
demons’ towers flared back through her mind and her body.

   “D-one is activated.”

   “Activate D-two.”

   “D-two is activated.”

   Nylan moistened his dry lips, finally
opening his eyes, then easing back onto the neuronet’s top
level, where his senses slipped across the screens and inputs that the
captain juggled as line two began the sweep through the probing
disruption lines cast by the demons.

   With twelve towers and only fifty angel
ships, he didn’t expect too much from the de-energizer beams
of line two, except that the demons’ towers would have to
draw on their own power, rather than use laser or solar energy to hold
the reflective focusing against the angels’ fleet. It often
took four lines to even get the reflective shields of the demons to dim.

   Nylan watched the representational
screen-no visual scans would show the intertwinings of energies and
positions that marked the angel-demon conflicts. The energy draw beams
converged on the selected nexus point, the two from the Winterlance,
two from the Deepchill, and one, of course, from the struggling
Polar/low.

   “Three! Get that D-beam in
position.”

   There was no response from the Polar/low,
but somehow the demons’ towers shifted in space, and the
D-beams flared into nothingness.

   The captain flattened the propulsion
fields and slewed the ship sideways at a right angle to the course
line, then even before the frigate was reoriented, pulsed the
de-energizers twice more on the nexus linch point between the shields
of two towers.

   Another pale amber de-energizer beam
struck the same linch point, then another, and then a fourth.

   “Power, Nylan. Power!”

   The engineer dropped into the neuronet,
and a hundred flashes of energy ripped at him, enough that his whole
body burned, as he boosted the fusactors to nearby twenty percent over
rated maximum and channeled everything but the power to the
ship’s screens into the de-energizers.

   Two disrupter fields bracketed the
Winterlance, and Nylan dropped his senses into the lowest power
sublevels, smoothing fields and trying to anticipate the feedback
effects.

   Somewhere, on the neuronet levels above
him, he could sense the implosion as the Polarflow was sucked into
over-space chaos.

   Ryba dropped the frigate’s
ambient gravity to near-null while lifting the Winterlance almost on
her tail. The demon disrupter brackets faded. Sweat poured from
Nylan’s forehead and down across his closed eyes as he eased
the flux lines into smooth lines of power from each fusactor and merged
them. He let the right fusactor rise to one hundred ten percent rated
output and the left to one hundred nine percent until just before the
hint of electronic chaos began to appear. Then he dropped both to just
shy of max.

   Even so, the system telltales began to
flash amber, like pinpoints of pain through Nylan’s body, and
he took the ventilation system off-line to compensate, knowing the two
dozen marines would start cursing even as the cold air stopped flowing
from the ventilator jets.

   The flight crew members were used to the
loss of ventilators in combat, and were usually too preoccupied to
worry, but the backup combat troops weren’t. They hated
serving as backups, but ever since the Icewind had captured a demon
tower, the angel high command had insisted on two squads of marines on
each cruiser. Of course, reflected Nylan, no other cruiser had even
come close to a tower ship, and the angel scientists had yet to figure
out how the damned tower worked, except that it somehow both created
chaos perturbations and used them to distort realspace.

   Two sets of disrupter beams probed around
the Winterlance.

   Ryba dropped the external energy levels
to nil, then pulsed screens.

   Nylan scrambled through the mid-level
powernet, cooling feedback, and unsnarling the energy loop from the
second fusactor, always more sensitive to field effects.

   A third beam switched to the Winterlance
as the Deepchill went to chaos.

   The captain dropped the nose and most of
the screens, jamming all the powerflows into acceleration, and
demanded, “Power!”

   Nylan rammed the fusactors into emergency
overload, nearly one hundred twenty percent of rating on each, letting
his nerves burn as he damped the swirls.

   The third line of angels began to attack
the towers, but the disrupter beams all seemed to remain searching for
the Winterlance, bracketing the cruiser on all sides.

   Nylan swallowed. With no gravity in the
Winterlance, the ship warming rapidly, the ventilation off, and the
captain playing spaceobatics to avoid the Rats’ focused ion
disassociators, his guts were twisted into knots, his eyes pools of
pain, and all he had to operate with were the net and his senses.

   “Shields!” Ryba
dropped the acceleration to nil.

   The fourth line of angel ships, including
the heavy cruisers, swept in from below, and dozens of de-energizers
licked at the towers, but the disrupters still slashed at the
Winterlance.

   Nylan reshifted the power flows into
overshields, calculated, and recalculated. The Winterlance’s
screens were strong enough for perhaps two simultaneous demon
beams-once, twice at the outside.

   One disrupter slid across the screens,
and Nylan moaned as the power burned into his brain, even as he shifted
the screen focus to blunt the dull, aching, and chaotic combined power
drain and overload.

   A sound like splintering glass,
shattering static, and pure chaos screeched through the comm bands as
the mirror ships’ nexus point collapsed and fundamental chaos
back-surged from the disintegrating Rat picket line.

   Angel ships scattered, some underjumping
blind, others swallowed by the chaos vortex unleashed by the nexus
point’s collapse.

   Ryba dropped the shields and pulled full
acceleration.

   The fundamental chaos-a white vortex
swirling in no directions and all directions-glittering with the
focused and reflected energies of the Rationalists’ tower
ships-slammed through the Winterlance, twisting and tumbling the
frigate through a dark funnel-into a red-tinged whiteness framed with
black order.

   The same blackness flooded over the
overloaded engineer.

 

 

III

 

NYLAN SHOOK. HIS head. He hadn’t expected that
he’d be able to shake his head-or that he’d even be
alive. Then he tried to access the neuronet, but nothing happened. He
concentrated on the power system, and got the mental image of the
board. The mental readouts matched the visual console before him, but
he had no feeling of being on the net, just the mental picture.

   Both status images revealed that the
fusactors were dead-almost as if they did not exist.

   He frowned.

   “Darkness! Look at
you…” murmured Ayrlyn.

   “What?” asked Nylan.

   “Your hair is silver-not old
silver, just silver.”

   “Enough on hair color! Where
are we?” Gerlich’s words growled from the speaker.

   “We’re trying to find
out!” snapped Ryba. “It takes longer
manually.”

   Nylan stared at the captain-whose dark
brown hair had clearly turned black-a dark jet-black. Jump transits
didn’t change hair color-that he knew. He turned toward
Ayrlyn, whose brown hair had become a fiery red, not orange-red or
mahogany-red, but like living flame.

   Were they all dead? Was this some form of
afterlife?

   “So… where are
we?” asked Saryn, her hair still brown, perhaps slightly
darker, a shade more… alive.

   As he waited for the captain to answer,
Nylan glanced at the board before him, where half the displays were
either dead or showing meaningless parameters, and then back at the
captain. Finally, he shrugged and waited.

   “Nowhere I’ve ever
seen,” Ryba finally answered. “The nav systems
don’t match anything, but we’re practically on top
of a planet, and I’ll have the orbit stabilized in a
bit.”

   The engineer frowned. The odds on
underjumping, especially blind and unintentionally, and ending up near
a planet, any kind of planet, were infinitesimal.

   “Nylan, is there any way to get
more power?”

   “The fusactors are dead,
Captain. I’ll try again.” Nylan concentrated on the
fusactors, ignoring the dead net, trying to call up and replicate the
feeling of smooth power flows.

   For a moment, perhaps several units, some
form of power flowed, but Nylan felt as if it were flowing from him,
not the fusactors, and the blackness began to rise around him.

   He let go of the image.
“That’s it, Captain.” He didn’t
know why, but he couldn’t do more.

   “Might have been
enough.” Ryba’s words were grunted.

   The engineer returned to study the
readouts before him, regretting the slowness of the manual inputs.
Since the captain said nothing, Nylan began to use the long-range
sensors to gather data on the planet, cataloguing each piece of data as
it hit the system. A warm water planet with no electronic emissions;
clear day-night rotational pattern; no moons of any size; no light
concentrations on the dark side; roughly Heaven-Sybra-standard gravity,
assuming that the mass balance was somewhere near norm.

   He trained one sensor on the sun and
swallowed.

   “Stable orbit… I
think,” announced Ryba, wiping her forehead with the back of
her black shipsuit sleeve. She turned in the couch and frowned.
“You were right, Ayrlyn. About the hair color.”

   Nylan nodded to himself. Was the
spectrum, the visible spectrum, different? How could it be? The
ship’s lights were still the same. Or were they all different?

   “Where are we?” asked
Saryn. “Does anyone know?”

   “A demon-fired long way from
anywhere-that’s certain.” Ryba wiped her forehead
again, looked back at the screens once more, and then at Nylan.
“You were doing something with the sensors, Nylan. What do
they show?”

   “I’d have to say that
we’re not in our universe.”

   “Not in our universe? How could
we not be in our universe?”

   “Would you prefer dead? The
afterlife of the demons? Those are your choices. Personally, Captain, I
prefer the alternative universe.”

   “And what might lead you to
this conclusion, Ser Nylan?” Ryba’s voice was
chill, the polite voice of disagreement that Nylan hated.

   “A number of little things,
beginning with the odds of blind underjumping and emerging near a
planet. In our universe, that kind of jump would have turned us into
dust and energy. The fusactors are both dead, and they
shouldn’t be. The indicators show that the firm cells are
discharging at half their normal rate, despite twice the emergency
load.”

   “At least there’s a
planet down there.”

   “That’s another
problem. It’s a water planet, and it’s in what
would be a habitable zone-assuming that such a thing existed with a
yellow-white star this hot. But it’s on the fringe for most
of us.”

   “You’re
half-Svennish, aren’t you?” snapped Gerlich over
the speaker. “Trust a Svenn to pick a hot planet.”

   “He didn’t pick
it,” pointed out Ryba. “How hot is it?”

   “If the sensors are
accurate… the sea-level surface is like Jobi, but warmer.
Too hot to be comfortable for us, but fine for demons. There are a
couple of high-altitude plateaus that would be perfect-especially in
the smaller continent, but setting a lander down there would be
murder.”

   “Trying to live in a place
hotter than Jobi would kill most of us-except you and
Ayrlyn,” responded Gerlich’s voice.

   Saryn swallowed in the background, but
Nylan said nothing.

   “It wouldn’t be a
revel for us.” Ayrlyn’s brown eyes seemed to flash
blue.

   Ryba nodded curtly, but not quite so
coldly. “Anything else?”

   “I think there’s some
form of life down there, and there shouldn’t be, not without
some form of moon, or unless we’re looking at a planoformed
world. But there aren’t any electronic emissions.”

   “Maybe it’s a lapsed
colony world.”

   “Could be. Whose? How long has
it been isolated?”

   “Stop it,
please…” said Ayrlyn. “If the fusactors
are down, can we fix them? If not, what do we do?”

   “We die or colonize.”
Ryba looked coldly back to Nylan. “Atmosphere?”

   “Rough analysis indicates low
CO, oxygen about twenty-two percent, mostly nitrogen. There’s
nothing obviously wrong, but I can’t rule out toxic or
chronic trace elements in the soil or atmosphere.”

   “Inhabited?”

   “The traces I’ve
picked up say so.” The engineer shrugged again.
“Could be anything, but it’s carbon-based, and, if
I had to guess, probably some form of humanoid. There are some regular
patches that could be fields and some lines that could be
roads…”

   “Better than savages, but not
much.”

   “You could be jumping to
conclusions,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “I have to go with the
odds.” The captain glanced back at the readouts.
“And we’re continuing to lose power.”

   “This whole world is against
the odds.”

   Ryba turned and called up the visual
display of the smaller continent on her console. “Nylan,
Saryn, Ayrlyn… come here.”

   “Captain? Gerlich here.
What’s the drill? The marine force leader wants to know. So
does Merlin.”

   “We’re in stable
orbit, but we’ll have to abandon the ship. We’re
surveying landing sites. You can commence figuring loads for the
landers. Something along the line of configuration C.”

   “Self-sustaining?”
came the weapons officer’s voice.

   “That’s affirmative.
Local culture looks primitive, but organized. Roads and fields, and
that probably means things like blades, archers, and cavalry or the
local equivalent if they have horses or what passes for them. Mass
density is standard, and that means metal-working.”

   “Understood. All four landers
appear operational…”

   “Fusactors aren’t
going to work here, Gerlich,” added Nylan.
“You’ll have to modify the configuration for
that.”

   “Fusactors work
everywhere.”

    “Not here, wherever here
is.”

   The captain looked at Nylan.
“You sound absolutely certain.”

   “You can have Gerlich test the
survival fusactor, but it won’t work.”

   “Weapons… the
engineer is probably right, but test the fusactor and let me
know.”

   “Will do, Captain. How much
time do we have?”

   “Take enough time to do it
right, Gerlich. We’re operating on stored power. We
can’t take the tier two firin cells, but try to make room for
the fully charged cells left in tier three.”

   “What tools?”

   “All the hand tools,
and”-Ryba looked at Nylan-“two sets of laser
cutters.”

   Nylan nodded.

   “No energy weapons?”
asked Gerlich.

   “The heavy-weapons head for one
laser. Hand weapons might be useful for a time, but we probably
won’t have any way to recharge them. All the slug-throwers
the marines have. And take all your clothing-especially sweaters or
warm things-even if you have to wear it or stuff it into cracks in the
landers. And blankets. I can guarantee we won’t be coming
back for anything.”

   “We’ll get working on
it, Captain.”

   Ryba turned to the bridge crew and
gestured to the screen. “Where do we go down?
Here’s the planet.”

   The four clustered around the single wide
screen.

   “Four major continents. The one
that looks like a fish- roughly-has an island off it.” Ryba
glanced at Nylan. “Would we be better off on the
island?”

   The engineer shook his head.
“It’s hot; it’s so dry that the sensors
don’t show any moisture, and there are no signs of
habitation. It’s also pretty rocky.”

   “What about the big southern
continent?”

   “Isn’t it
hot?” asked Saryn. “It’s not that far
south of the equator.”

   “Very hot,” admitted
Nylan.

   “You don’t seem very
positive, Ser Nylan,” commented Ryba. “Each unit we
sit and talk costs us power, and all you do is say no.”

   Nylan shrugged. “I’d
vote for the second-largest continent. It’s got some high
mountain plateaus in that western range. It’s spring or early
summer now, and we can land. There’s greenery there, but no
signs of habitation-probably too cold for the locals, and it might be
helpful not to tramp on anyone’s boots.”

   “It’s hundreds and
hundreds of kays from any access to oceans or major rivers,”
pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “We’re not exactly
into seafaring,” Nylan said dryly.

   “Fine,” said the
captain. “We land on this mountain plateau. We get a
defensible position-maybe. We get snow and ice over our head in the
winter, a short growing season, and probably not much access to
building materials.”

   “We also have more time to
establish ourselves before the local authorities, or what passes for
such, show up,” answered Nylan.

   “It’s insane to try
and put a lander into a mountain pasture. It could be just a
high-altitude swamp,” protested Saryn.

   “The odds are against that, and
there are two areas where we could land. Each is twice as long as a
lander’s set-down distance.”

   “Twice as long in the middle of
mountains that could rip a lander into little shreds.”

   Nylan shrugged. “How long will
anyone last if we set down on those hot and flat plains?”

   “We don’t even know
if they have local authorities, or if the locals are intelligent, or if
they even look remotely like us,” protested Saryn.
“This is insane.”

   “I think you just validated the
engineer’s suggestion,” said Ryba.
“There’s too much we don’t know, and we
don’t have the energy to shuttle things off the ship.
Besides…” She left the sentence unfinished, but
Nylan knew the unspoken words. Except for removable power supplies,
weapons, and tools, the Winterlance would shortly be unusable in any
case.

   “Trying to hit mountain landing
areas? That’s crazy.”

   “You’re
right,” Nylan agreed. “Except that trying to land
anywhere else would be even riskier. The landing is high risk, but it
makes survival lower risk. Take your choice.”

   “We’re opting for
long-term survival,” announced the captain.
“I’m not interested in merely prolonging existence
enough to die of heat exhaustion on a nice flat plain where landing is
easy. I’ll begin computing the entry paths,” the
captain announced. “Nylan, would you do a survey of your
equipment to see if there’s anything else that could be
useful planetside?”

   The engineer nodded as the captain
assigned the responsibilities for cannibalizing the Winterlance.

 

 

IV

 

“HAVE YOU DETERMINED the cause of the great
perturbation between order and chaos-the one that shook the world last
evening?” asks the white-haired man dressed in the more
traditional flowing white robes.

   The younger, but balding, man straightens
and looks up from the circular glass in the middle of the white oak
table. “Ser?”

   “I asked, Hissl, about the
great perturbation. Jissek still lies in a stupor, and my glass shows
that waves flooded the Great North Bay.”

   “Waves always flood the Great
North Bay, honored Terek.” Hissl inclines his head to the
older magician, and the summer light that reflects off the roof of the
keep of Lornth and through the window glistens on his bald pate.
“I do believe that order fought chaos in the skies, and that
times will be changing.”

   “A safe prediction,”
snorts Terek. “The times always change. Tell me something
useful.”

   The man in the white tunic and trousers
stands and bows to the older white-clad man. “There are
strangers approaching from the skies.”

   “There are always strangers
approaching. How do you know they are from the skies?”

   “The glass shows a man and a
woman. The man has hair colored silver like the stars, and the woman
has flaming red hair, like a fire. They are seated in a tent of
iron.”

   “An old man and a redheaded
weakling?”

   “The man is young, and the
woman is a warrior, and they bring other women warriors.”

   “How many?” Terek
walks to the unglazed window of the lower magicians’ tower,
where the shutters tremble against the leather thongs that hold them
open. His eyes look out upon the barely green hilly fields above the
river.

   “A score.”

   “I should tremble at a score of
women warriors? This is the message of such a great
disturbance?”

   Hissl bows again. “You have
asked what I have seen, and you mock what I tell you.”

   “Bah! I will wait until Jissek
wakes.”

   “As you wish. I have warned you
of the danger.”

   Terek shakes his head and turns toward
the plank door that squeaks on its rough hinges with each gust of the
spring wind. He does not shut it as he leaves.

   Hissl waits until he can no longer hear
the sound of boots on the tower stairs. Then he smiles, recalling the
lances of winter that the strangers bear, and the breadth of the
women’s shoulders.

 

 

V

 

NYLAN WENT THROUGH the manual controls a third time, as well
as through the checklist once more. Then he studied the rough maps and
the readouts again. He had one of the two landing beacons, and his was
the one that the other three landers would hone in on-assuming he
managed to set down where he planned, assuming that he could find the
correct high plateau in the middle of the right high mountain range
without getting spitted on the surrounding needle-knife peaks. The
second beacon would go down with Ryba-in case he ran into trouble.

   “Black two, this is black one.
Comm check.” Nylan watched his breath steam as he waited for
a reply.

   “One, this is two. Clear and
solid.”

   “Good. You’re cleared
to break orbit.”

   The engineer took a deep breath.
“I’m not quite through the checks. About four
units, I’d guess.”

   “Let us know.”

   “Will do.”

   In the couches behind him were the eight
marines assigned to his lander. The craft wasn’t really a
lander, but a space cargo/personnel shuttle that could be and had been
hastily modified into a lifting body with stub wings for a single
atmospheric entry in emergency situations. Only one of the four landers
carried by the Winterlance was actually designed for normal atmospheric
transits, and it had far less capacity. That was the one Ryba was
bringing down with the high-priority cargo items.

   Although Nylan had more experience in
atmospheric flight than Saryn or even Ryba, he wasn’t keen
about being the lead pilot through an atmosphere he’d never
seen, belonging to a planet he suspected shouldn’t exist.
Because he was even less keen about dying of starvation or lack of
oxygen in orbit, he continued with the checklist. Still, the business
of trying to hit mountain plateaus bothered him, even if it were the
only hope for most of the crew. “Harnesses strapped and
tight?”

   “We’re tight,
ser,” responded Fierral from the couch beside him, the
blue-eyed squad leader, who once had been a brunette, but who now had
become a fiery redhead as a result of the Winterlance’s
strange underjump. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to
be floating around here anyway, would it now?”

   “No,” admitted the
engineer. He took another deep breath before flicking through the
remainder of the checklist.

   He scanned the screens, then thumbed the
comm stud. “Black one, this is two. Breaking orbit this
time.”

   “We’ll be tracking
you.”

   “Thanks.” Nylan
pulsed the jets, amused as always that it took energy to leave orbit,
then watched the three limited screens as the lander slowly rose, then
dropped, although neither sensation was more than a hint with the
gentle movements. He knew those movements would be far less gentle at
the end of the flight.

   The first brush with the solidity of the
upper atmosphere was a dragging skid, and enough of a warming in the
lander that Nylan’s breath no longer steamed.

   The second brush was longer, harder, like
a bareback ride across a fall-frozen stubbled field just before the
snows of a Sybran winter began. And the lander warmed more.

   Nylan studied the screens, not liking
either the temperature readouts or the closures.

   “Make sure those harnesses are
tight! This is going to be rough.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   With the third and last atmospheric
contact, the lander bucked, stiffly, and then again, even more roughly,
as the thin whisper of the upper atmosphere slowly built into a
screaming shriek.

   Whhheeeeeee…

   The lander was coming in fast…
too fast.

   Nylan flared the nose, bleeding off
speed, but increasing the heat buildup. Then he dropped it fractionally.

   Whheeeeeeeee…

   The lander bounced, as though it had
skidded on something solid in the upper atmosphere, then dropped as if
through a vacuum. Nylan’s guts pushed up through his throat,
and he could taste bile and smell his own sweated - out fear.

   “Friggin‘
pilot… not made of durall steel…”

   “Does… best he
can… wants… to live, too…”

   “Don’t apologize for
an engineer, Desinada…”

   Nylan tried to match geographic landmarks
with the screens, but the lander vibrated too much for him to really
see.

   The sweat beaded up on his forehead, the
result of nonexistent ventilation, nerves, and the heat bleeding
through the barely adequate ablative heat shields, and burned into the
corners of his eyes, as his hands and mind worked to keep the lander
level.

   The buffeting began to subside, enough
that he could see ocean far below and what looked like the tail of the
fish continent ahead.

   He checked the distance readouts and the
altitude. He’d lost too much height. After studying the fuel
reserves, little enough, he thumbed on the jets and flattened his
descent angle.

   At the lower speed, though, the effect of
the high winds became more pronounced, and the edges of the stub wings
began to flex, almost to chatter. With little enough power, the
engineer could do nothing except hold the lander level, and
wish… He tried to imagine smoothing the airflow around the
lifting body, easing the turbulence, soothing the laminar flow, and it
almost seemed as though he were outside the ship, in a neuronet, a
different neuronet, almost like smoothing the Winterlance’s
fusactor power flows.

   The chattering diminished, and Nylan
slowly exhaled.

   Another hundred kays passed underneath,
and he thumbed off the jets, hoping to be able to save some of the
meager fuel for landing adjustments.

   Far beneath him, the screens showed what
seemed to be a rocky desert, a boulder-strewn expanse baked in the sun.
Ahead rose the ice-knife peaks that circled the high plateau that was
his planned destination.

   He thumbed the jets once more, again
imagining smoothing the airflow around the lander. Surprisingly, the
lander climbed slightly, and Nylan permitted himself a slight grin.

   The DRI pointed to the right, and the
engineer eased the, lander rightward, wincing as the lifting body lost
altitude in the maneuver.

   All too soon, the high alpine meadows
appeared in the screens as green dots-small green dots, but the
southernmost one grew rapidly into a long dash of green set amid gray
rock.

   The lander arrived above the target
meadow, except the meadow showed gray lumps along the edges, and a
sheer drop-off at the east end that plunged more than a kay down to an
evergreen forest.

   From what Nylan could tell, the wind was
coming out of the east, and he dropped the lander into a circling
descent that would bring the lifting body onto a final approach into
the wind. He hoped the approach wouldn’t be too final, but
the drop-off allowed the possibility of remaining airborne for a bit if
the long grassy strip were totally unusable.

   As he eased around the descending
circular approach, the lander began to buffet. Nylan kept easing the
nose up, trying to kill the lifting body’s airspeed to just
above stalling before he hit the edge of the tilted high meadow that
seemed so awfully short as he brought the lander over the ground that
seemed to have more rocks than grass or bushes.

   He eased the nose up more, letting the
trailing edge of the belly scrape the ground, fighting the
craft’s tendency to fishtail, almost willing the lifting body
to remain stable.

   The lander shivered and shuddered, and a
grinding scream ripped through Nylan’s ears as he eased the
craft full onto its belly. The impact of full ground contact threw
Nylan against the harness straps, and the straps dug deeply into flesh
and muscle. The engineer kept compensating as the lander skidded toward
the drop-off, slowing, slowing, but still shuddering eastward, and
tossing Nylan from side to side in his harness.

   With a final shudder, the
lander’s nose dug into something, and the craft rocked to a
halt.

   For a long moment, the engineer just sat
in the couch. “We’re down.” Nylan slowly
unfastened the safety harness, trying to ignore the spots of tenderness
across his body that would probably remind him for days about the
roughness of his landing.

   “Did you have to be so
rough?” asked Fierral. “Any emergency landing that
you can walk away from is a good one. We’re walking away from
this one.”

   “You may be walking, ser, but
the rest of us may have to crawl.” The squad leader shook her
head, and the short flame-red hair glinted.

   “Are you sure he’s
done?” asked another marine. “We’re
done.” Nylan touched the stud that cracked the hatch. There
wasn’t any point in waiting. Either the ship’s
spectrographic analyzers had been right or they hadn’t, and
there was no way to get back to orbit, and not enough supplies in the
ship to do more than starve to death-especially since no one knew where
they were and since there were no signs of technology advanced enough
to effect a rescue.

   The air was chill, almost cold, colder
even than northern Sybra in summer, but still refreshing. A scent of
evergreen accompanied the chill.

   With a deep breath, Nylan stepped to the
hatch on the right side of the lander and used the crank to open it the
rest of the way, “It smells all right.”

   “I can’t believe you
just opened it. Just like that,” said Fierral.

   “We didn’t have any
choice. We’re not going anywhere. We can breath it, or we
can’t.” Because the lander had come to rest with
the right side higher than the left, Nylan had to lower himself to the
ground.

   “… can’t
believe him… kill us all or not…”

   “… least he
doesn’t dither around…”

   “Neither does the
captain… probably why they get along…”

   Leaving the voices behind, the engineer
slowly surveyed what was going to be their new home, like it or not.

   The landing area was a long strip of
alpine meadow, perhaps five kays long and a little more than two wide,
bordered on three sides by rocky slopes that quickly rose into the
knife-edged peaks that had shown so clearly on the screens. To the
north was a ridge, lower than the surrounding rocky areas, almost a
pass, through which he had brought the lander. The entire meadow area
sloped slightly downhill from the northwest to the southeast, one of
the reasons the landing had seemed to take longer than necessary, Nylan
suspected. To the southwest, beyond the rocky slopes, rose a needle
peak, impossibly tall, yet seemingly sheathed in ice.

   “Freyja… blade of
the gods,” he said quietly.

   “It is, isn’t
it?” said Fierral from behind his shoulder. “How
did you get us down?”

   “It wasn’t too
bad.”

   Fierral glanced back to the west, along
the trail gouged out by the lander. “That’s not
exactly a prepared runway.”

   “No.” Nylan laughed.
“Would you give me a hand? We need to set up the beacon for
the others.”

   “They can land here?”

   ‘The beacon makes it a lot
easier. You can lock in a direction and rate of descent.“

   “I would get the hard
landing.”

   “We’re
here.”

   “Wherever that is.”
Fierral wiped her sweating forehead and glanced around the high
plateau. “At least it’s not too hot.”

   Behind them, the other marines dropped
from the lander.

   Nylan looked at the track he had made.
From what he could tell, most of the rocks were small, nothing that
would create too many problems. Rising from the grass between the rocks
were small purple flowers, shaped like stars, that rose on thin, almost
invisible, stems.

   Nylan forced his thoughts from the
fragile flowers and turned toward the lander itself. From what he could
see, the ablative coating on the belly had been largely removed by the
shrubbery and rocks.

   “We’ve got some work
to do-quickly. We need to set up the beacon and see if we can move the
lander a bit.” He headed toward the lander and the emergency
beacon it contained. Fierral followed.

   One of the marines walked the several
hundred steps eastward from the lander, pausing just short of the sheer
dropoff.

   “… frigging long way
down…”

   Nylan nodded. They had come a long ways
down. He just hoped that they didn’t have to fall any farther.

 

 

VI

 

HISSL STUDIES THE images in the glass. Four rounded metal
tents squat amid the late spring grasses that carpet the Roof of the
World. On the high ground in the northwest corner of the grassy area,
the silver-haired man hammers stakes in place in a pattern which Hissl
cannot determine through the mists of the glass.

   Thrap! At the sound, Hissl squints and
the image in the screeing glass fades into swirling white mists that in
turn vanish, leaving what appears as a circular flat mirror in the
center of the small white oak table. He turns.
“Yes?”

   “Hissl, Jissek has recovered,
and we are here.”

   “Do come in.” The man
in white erases the frown and stands, waiting, as the two other men in
white step into the room.

   Terek closes the door and smiles.

   Hissl returns the smile and bows.
“I am honored.”

   “What do you make of the people
of the iron tents?” asks the rotund Jissek. “From
where did they come, do you think?”

   “From beyond the skies-that is
certain.”

   “Why do you say
that?” asks Terek.

   Both Jissek and Hissl look at the older
wizard. Terek looks at Hissl as if waiting for an answer.

   Hissl takes a deep breath before he
speaks, ignoring the frown his sigh evokes from Terek. “There
are many signs. It would appear that the tents flew down to the Roof of
the World-”

   “Flew? Iron cannot
fly.”

   “They flew,”
confirmed Jissek.

   “The people who were in the
tents look mostly like us, but they are not. I have never seen silver
hair on young people or hair that is red like a fire. And they sweat,
as if the Roof of the World is warm, as though it might be hot like in
the Stone Hills or the high plains of Analeria in midsummer.”

   “That seems little enough. What
else?”

   “They are mostly women. Out of
a score, only three are men. Their leader is a woman. At least, she is
shaped like a woman. And all the women bear what look like weapons,
though I cannot be sure.”

   “The angels, you
think?” asks Jissek.

   Hissl shrugs.

   “Angels? Bah . . tales to
frighten children with. That’s all.”

   “Every wizard who can scree
will see these women, and such tales will get passed, especially to
those few who follow the black.”

   Terek pulls at his smooth chin.
“Such tales… that would not be good. Perhaps
someone should travel west.”

   Hissl and Jissek exchange glances.
Finally, Hissl, the youngest wizard, the only balding one, clears his
throat. “Would it be… proper for us to undertake
such a mission- given the concerns raised by Lord Nessil of
Lornth?”

   “That might work to our
advantage,” points out Terek. “Lord Nessil would
not wish the example of armed women to be made known, especially to the
Jerans. Their women ride with the men, and he has had some
trouble…”

   The other two wizards nod.

   “He would appreciate our
concern, and he would be most intrigued with women of silver or fiery
red hair.”

   “These…
angels… might not take to being taken,” says Hissl.

   “Have they shown weapons?
Thunderbolts, or firebolts such as we can bring?”

   “No,” admits the
balding wizard. “Not that we have seen used.”

   “Then fourscore armsmen should
be more than enough.”

   “As you wish.” Hissl
inclines his head.

   “I will recommend, of course,
that you accompany His Lordship.” Terek smiles.
“Since you have discovered the strangers, you should share in
the rewards. And one wizard should be more than enough. We would not
wish to imply a lack of confidence in the abilities of His
Lordship.”

   “No… no,
indeed,” murmurs Jissek, wiping his forehead.

   “You are most kind, High
Wizard.” Hissl offers a head bow. “Most
kind.”

 

 

VII

 

THE LANDER SHELLS formed a square on the rocky upper slope of
the alpine area, adjacent to one of the two small streams that wound
through the grass and shrubs, and below the staked-out pattern that
Nylan had made. One of the shells contained several body-sized dents,
and plastic foam filled a long gouge on the left side. On the uphill
side of the shells were several plastic-covered stacks-the disassembled
sections of the landers’ exterior removable parts.

   The wind whispered in from the north,
barely above freezing.

   Nylan and Ryba lay together in the
forward part of lander one, sharing the command couch, under the light
thermal blanket that was more than warm enough for them.

   Only the faintest light crept in through
the short corridor from the hatch, but Nylan had no difficulty seeing.
With the silver hair had apparently come some form of enhanced night
vision that took in the objects around him in the dimmest of light. He
looked at Ryba, short hair tousled, face calm in sleep-not quite
relaxed, but he had never seen her completely relaxed.

   Beyond the couch were their
clothes… and the twin blades Ryba had brought down from the
Winterlance and begun to wear. Nylan did not shake his head. She was
doubtless correct in assuming that the blades would have to serve as a
defense before long and in accustoming herself to their use. What
weapon could he use? A blade probably, since Ryba could teach him,
although the idea of an edged weapon bothered him. But where would they
get blades?

   Though he knew the basics of metallurgy,
he’d never tried anything so primitive as smithing, and he
had no idea if there were any metallic deposits nearby. Charcoal he
could make, if he ever had the time, and he could devise some sort of
bellows, but they would be useless without iron or copper. The landers
held enough steel alloys, but a primitive smithy would be hard-pressed
to reach temperatures high enough to melt or cast them.

   He took a long, slow breath.

   Ryba’s eyes flickered, and
then, as always, she was awake. “What are you thinking
about?”

   “Weapons, smithing, how to use
the materials in the landers…” He shrugged,
suddenly conscious of her nakedness next to him.

   “That’s not all
you’re thinking about,” whispered Ryba.

   Nylan could feel himself blushing.

   “And after last night? Shame on
you.”

   Nylan nibbled on her neck.

   “Not now… I can hear
someone in the back.”

   “It’s different in
the morning. Besides, we’ve got a lot to do. The growing
season is so short. We’ll have to get those grow-paks figured
out and started. They’re really designed as deep-space
hydroponic units, but there are instructions for conversion, and
there’s one planet or soil-based unit.” The captain
swung her feet onto the chill composite flooring of what had been the
cockpit area.

   Nylan swung his feet to the other side,
aware of the warmth of her back against his and of the faint scent of
evergreens and the whispering of the wind outside.

   Ryba pulled on her shipsuit, as did
Nylan. He followed her into the dawn, and toward the stream to wash up.
Neither spoke.

   As the day lightened, long before the sun
had edged above the tree-fringed eastern horizon that lay beyond the
drop-off, Nylan had whittled a small limb into shavings, then used one
of the matches to light the cook fire. He looked down at the match,
then shook his head. “Strikers, maybe.”

   “Strikers?” Ayrlyn
broke off a handful of dried end branches from the dead tree limb that
several marines had dragged nearly a kay the day before.

   “Steel and flint…
maybe I could cut some pieces from the lander and bend them into an
arc, attach the stone. Haven’t seen any flint,
though.”

   “You are planning for the long
haul, aren’t you?” Ayrlyn fed more of the tinder
into the small flickering flames, flames duller than her flaming hair.

   “Not so long. Three boxes of
matches might last a local year if we used only one a day. We
don’t exactly have a chemical-processing industry
here.” Nylan picked up a plastic bucket, checking the scrapes
on the gray material, then began to walk toward the stream.

   “Does he sleep?”
Saryn limped toward the fire that Ayrlyn fed, leaning heavily on the
rough staff that allowed her to avoid putting too much weight on the
hardened foam cast around her broken right leg.

   “Neither he nor the captain
seem to need much.” Ayrlyn yawned.

   “Where’s the
captain?”

   “In number two with Merrin,
sorting through the grow-paks,” answered the engineer,
returning with a full bucket of water. “She wants to get
started on laying out fields and planting.”

   “We’ve been down less
than an eight-day, and she wants us to be field hands?” asked
Saryn.

   “What about Gerlich?
Where’s he gone?” inquired Ayrlyn.

   “He’s got the one bow
and the arrows-out hunting. He claims there’s something like
a wild boar out there.” Nylan gave a short laugh.

   Saryn shook her head.

   The captain and the junior officer
emerged from the shell of lander two and walked toward the fire. Mertin
ducked to avoid the line of smoke that seemed almost to seek his face.

   From lander four emerged Fierral. The
red-haired marine commander and the two ships’ officers
converged on the fire, stopping well back.

   “Why the fire?” asked
Fierral. “We’ve still got firm cells.”

   “Cooking. We’re
saving the cells for things we can’t duplicate
locally,” answered Ryba.

   “Such as?”

   Two more marines eased up toward the fire.

   “Powering the combat laser, if
we need to.” Ryba adjusted the makeshift hairband to keep the
short and thick black hair totally away from her face.

   Nylan emptied half the water into the
kettle and swung it out over the fire on the makeshift crane. He
frowned as he set aside the bucket.

   “You don’t approve,
Ser Engineer?”

   “I hope we can avoid that. The
combat laser gobbles power. The more power we can use for constructive
purposes the better.”

   “I take it you have some
ideas?”

   Nylan stood. “I’ve
been studying the geology. There’s something that looks like
black marble, except it’s not. It’s tougher, but
it’s not as hard as granite, and I hope it cuts more
easily-with a laser.”

   “Houses?” asked Saryn.

   The silver-haired man shook his head.
“A tower, something like that. It makes more sense.
That’s what I staked out-good solid footings there.”

   “How long ‘fore we
start building something, ser?” asked one of the younger
marines standing behind Ayrlyn.

   “That’s not the first
priority,” snapped Ryba. “The lander shells are
fine for now. What we need to get in the ground is food. We also need
to survey the forest and the meadow here to see what’s likely
to be edible, while we still have the analyzer and some
power.”

   Nylan nodded.

   “And…
we’ll still need timber of some sort to roof, floor, and
brace the engineer’s tower.”

   “We might not need planks
except for flooring and bracing,” Nylan volunteered.
“There’s a dark gray slate that splits into sheets
pretty easily.”

   “Good… I
think.”

   “What’s in the
emergency grow-paks?” Saryn leaned back on the flat stone,
stretching out the leg with the cast.

   “Maize, although I
don’t know about whether the stream will supply enough
water… potatoes that ought to do well in a cold climate,
some high-protein beans.”

   “Get the potatoes in
first,” suggested Nylan.

   “Potatoes?” asked
Mertin, stepping up beside Ryba.

   “They grow just about anywhere,
and we could exist on them with only a few supplements. The ground
seems all right.” The engineer poured the rest of the water
from the bucket into the pot. “They keep better than some of
the other plants, although you could dry and grind the maize into a
flour, I think.”

   “Seems?” asked Saryn.

   Nylan shrugged. “It might take
generations to determine if all the trace elements are there, but
I’d bet they are.”

   Ryba looked at him.

   “If it’s not
perfectly planoformed, it’s a natural duplicate of a hot
humanoid world. It feels right.”

   “Are we going to rely on
feel?”

   “We’d better figure
out something to rely on besides high technology that won’t
be around much longer.”

   “Feel…”
Ryba frowned. “Let’s finish eating and get to work
on those fields. The growing season can’t be very long here.
Once we get everything we can planted, then we’ll worry about
game and timber and longer-range priorities.”

   Fierral nodded, stiffly, like the marine
force leader she remained.

   Saryn straightened on the rock where she
sat and winced.

   Nylan glanced uphill across the
starflower-strewn grass and bushes-and rocks-to the staked outline of
the foundations of what he hoped would be a tower… if they
could get to it. If the locals didn’t show up in force
first… If… He clamped his lips together, ignoring
the sidelong look from Ryba.

 

 

VIII

 

THE EARLY-MORNING sun glared out of the blue-green sky and
bathed the sloping meadow, and the figures who toiled there, glinting
off the few exposed metal sections of the lander shells and off the
small spring that fed the stream.

   Ryba stood above it all, on the top of
the rocky ledges above the dampness of the meadows in the wind that
blew steadily from the northwest. With her stood Fierral and two
marines. All four looked to the northeast, down the rocky ridge line.

   “There… you can see
them, at the base of the ridge there. It’s almost as good as
a road.” Fierral pointed. “They’re pretty
clearly headed here. And there are a lot of them.”

   “I’d expected a
little more time before anyone found us. I wonder how they
knew.” Ryba frowned, then shrugged. “I suppose
that’s not the issue now.”

   “What do you want us to
do?” asked the blue-eyed force leader.

   “Act innocent. Keep the
sentries in place and use the mirrors to signal me when they get close.
Position the rifles there in the rocks where you can sweep them if you
have to. Try not to use them until you really have to. I’d
rather save the ammunition. Make sure the rest of the marines have
their sidearms with them. We only have the pair of rifles?”

   “Just the two,”
Fierral affirmed.

   “Give one to each of your best
snipers-besides you- and put one where you are and the other on the far
end of that downhill clump of rocks.”

   “Not a bad cross
fire.” The force leader nodded.

   “Then set up the rest of the
marines where they can take cover quickly if they have to. They might
have archers or something.”

   “I didn’t see
anything like that through the glasses,” Fierral said slowly.
“You don’t think they’re
peaceful?”

   “With more than fifty horses in
a primitive culture? That’s the equivalent of a half-dozen
mirror towers.” Ryba snorted. “No…
they’re not peaceful, but we’ll pretend they are,
and I’m betting they’ll be trying for the same
impression, too.”

   Fierral raised her eyebrows, just as
flaming red as her hair, but said nothing and waited for Ryba to
explain.

   “It’s simple. The way
the approach runs here, you have to come up the ridge, and
that’s exposed. Nylan was right. It’s a good spot
for a tower-or a castle. The rocks behind there are too sharp to bring
horses through, and too steep. So”-Ryba shrugged
again-“without modern weapons, it would be hard to take. But
first we have to survive to build it. Anyway, they’ll pretend
to come in peace, unless we attack first, just to get close, and they
think we’ll be drawn in.”

   “Men,” laughed
Fierral.

   “They may be transparent, squad
leader, but they’re still dangerous.” Ryba turned.
“The engineer will be doing the prep work for his tower, and
I’ll keep a handful busy with the ditching. We might as well
do something while we’re waiting. It will be a while.
They’ll walk the horses up here so that they’re
fresh for the battle they’re pretending they don’t
want. Try not to kill the horses. We’ll need them.”

   “Besides you, who can
ride?” asked Fierral.

   “You’ll all have to
learn, sooner or later. This way, we won’t have to buy
mounts.”

   The other two marines looked from the
hard face of their squad leader to the harder face of the captain.

 

 

IX

 

“LORD NESSIL, THE ang-the strangers are just over
the rise, not more than twenty rods beyond the tips of the gray
rocks.” The armsman in brown leathers keeps his voice low and
looks up to the hatchet-faced man in the heavy purple cloak. Blotches
of moisture have soaked through the armsman’s leather
trousers, and green smears attest to his crawling through underbrush
and grass.

   Lord Nessil brushes back a long lock of
silver and black hair, then smiles. “Are they as attractive
as the screeing glass shows?”

   “Pardoning Your Grace, but I
wasn’t looking at them that way.” The
armsman’s eyes flicker to his right as another trooper leads
his horse back to him. “They don’t seem bothered by
the chill. They wear light garments, like they were in Lydiar in
midsummer, but I wasn’t looking beyond the clothes, more for
blades, and only the black-haired wench bears one. A pair she
has.”

   “A pair of what?”
asks Nessil.

   Lettar looks down at the grass.

   “For that, Lettar, you shall
have one to enjoy.” Nessil laughs softly. “Women
warriors, and only one has a blade. I shall enjoy this.” He
turns toward the wizard in white. “What do your arts show,
Wizard?”

   “There are less than a score
that I can scree there, eighteen in all, and but three men. They bear
some strange devices that radiate some small measure of order, and
others that bear some measure of chaos. They have set up a spindly
windmill that will be ripped apart in the first good wind.”
Hissl inclines his head.

   “What would you have us do,
Wizard?”

   “I would like your men to
preserve their devices. We might learn something from them. I cannot
advise Your Grace on tactics, My Lord. You are the warrior. I can but
say that they are likely to be more formidable than they appear. I
cannot tell you why.”

   Nessil laughs again, still softly, but
more harshly. “You caution me that they could be formidable,
but not why. Thus, if I succeed in capturing them all, I will be
pleased.” His face darkens. “If I fail, you may
claim you warned me. Wizard’s double words! Ride beside me,
Ser Wizard.”

   “Pardoning Your Grace, but what
shall we do? Ride down on them?” asks Lettar.

   “No. We will be civilized. We
will ride up and demand their surrender for trespass. That way, we
might get them all. We do outnumber them more than three to
one.” Nessil looks at Hissl. “And we get the wizard
close enough to use his firebolts if need be.”

   “What about the men?”

   “If they resist, kill them. If
not, we can always use them somewhere. Try to save as many of the women
as you can. I’ve never had a silver-haired wench-or one with
fire-red hair.” Nessil offers a boyish grin and looks along
the line of threescore mounted troopers. “Shall we make our
appearance? Bring out the banners. After all, we do come in peace, one
way or another.”

   Hissl’s eyes glaze slightly, as
if he is no longer quite within his body.

   Then the horsemen ride toward the low
rise, over which looms the ice-needle peak that dominates the Roof of
the World. The banners flap in the brisk wind that blows out of the
north and spins the windmill beyond the crest of the hill.

   The starflowers left in the meadow on the
far side of the ridge-those that have not been destroyed by the
cultivation or wilted as their season has passed-bend in the wind.

 

 

X

 

ABOVE THE PLOT where Gerlich and several marines half toiled
at ditch-digging, partly sheltered by a line of boulders, Nylan studied
the laser, and the array of firin cells in the portable rack. He
mumbled and made another adjustment to the powerhead on the laser.

   “Why don’t you just
try it, ser?” asked the stocky blond marine behind him.

   “Because, Huldran, we can only
replace a fraction of the power.”

   “What about the emergency
generator?” Huldran nodded her head toward the man-sized but
flimsy-looking windmill set near the crest of the hill. Beneath it was
a small array of solar cells. Both the cells and the generator fed
through a converter into a single firin cell.

   Nylan laughed. “The laser uses
more energy in a few units than the generator supplies in a
day.” After another readjustment to the powerhead, he
straightened and wiped his sweating forehead. “It gets hot
here in the day.”

   “Yes, ser.” Huldran
wiped away the sweat from her fair-skinned forehead.

   “I heard that, Ser
Engineer,” said Gerlich from the plot.
“It’s frigging hot here. It would have been hard to
try to live any lower. I’ll bet those lowlands are like the
demons’ hell.” The shirtsleeved Gerlich blotted his
brow and handed the makeshift spade to one of the marines.
“Your turn.”

   “Yes, ser.” The
dark-haired marine took the shovel and continued digging the ditch that
would divert stream water through the plot. Her eyes continued to scan
the rise to the north as she slowly dug.

   Three other marines grubbed at the ground
with makeshift implements resembling hoes to clear away the mixture of
what appeared to be grass and a high-altitude clover bearing occasional
reddish blooms. Their eyes occasionally darted toward the top of the
ridge or toward one of the rock formations. The shortest marine wiped
her forehead, her hand unconsciously touching the slug-thrower at her
belt.

   “How long do we have to play at
being innocent would-be peasants, anyway?” asked Gerlich.

   “Until our visitors
arrive,” responded Ryba from the end of the small plot.
“In any case, you’ve proved you can toil with the
best, Gerlich.” She motioned to the former weapons officer.
“You can even bring in game with a bow-even dangerous
game.” Her eyes flicked to the rack where another marine had
stretched out the hide of what appeared to be a cougar and studied a
small manual. “No one knows what to do with the hide. What do
you know about making bows and arrows?”

   “Not much. I use them. Others
make them.”

   “We’re all going to
have to do some making here.”

   Gerlich smiled lazily and shrugged.

   Ryba’s hand flicked, and, as if
by magic, the tip of one of the steel blades appeared at the
brown-haired man’s throat. Her eyes met his, as they stood
there, the captain almost equal in height to the husky weapons officer,
and in breadth of shoulders.

   Gerlich swallowed.

   “In case you’ve
forgotten, I’m not only captain, but I’m tougher
than you are-and so are most of the marines, in case you get any
ideas.” Ryba’s blade vanished back into the
scabbard. “Now… do you want to try to figure out
how to make something useful?”

   “You’ve made it clear
I have little choice.”

   “None of us do, not if
we’re going to survive. I intend to make sure that we all
do.”

   A light flashed across Ryba’s
face, and she squinted, then turned toward the sentry up in the rocks.
After a moment, she called, “Ready! Stand by for
visitors.”

   “Ready, Captain,”
responded Fierral, squaring her broad shoulders.

   To the north of the plot, but to the
right of the rockier ground where Nylan’s crude stakes marked
the tower that might never be built, Saryn sat in the shade of a
boulder and used one of the three survival knives to pare down a fir
limb into the shaft of what would be another shovel. At
Ryba’s command, she eased her own slug-thrower out of the
holster and onto the flat rock. She stopped peeling and carving, but
still held the knife loosely.

   Beyond her, still partly sheltered by a
line of boulders, Nylan made yet another adjustment to the powerhead on
the laser. He straightened, then frowned as he both heard
Ryba’s command, and somehow felt the presence of horsemen
beyond the ridge.

   Was it just his imagination?

   Ryba walked uphill toward the rocks until
she was less than a dozen paces from where Saryn and Nylan worked.
“Company’s about to arrive.”

  
“Wonderful…” mumbled Nylan.
“We’re barely planet-side an eight-day, and someone
has decided to start a fight. Humans are such peaceful
creatures.”

   “We’re
angels,” hissed the dark-haired Saryn.

   “Same same,” muttered
the engineer back.

   “High Command would have your
head for that,” pointed ‘ out the second pilot.

   “We’ll never see High
Command again.”

   Saryn shivered.

   “Keep your slug-throwers
ready,” added Ryba. “Aim for the body.”

   The ground vibrated slightly as the
horsemen crossed the top of the ridge. In the van were two young men
bearing purple banners, followed by a man in a purple cloak thrown back
to reveal an iron breastplate and a large hand - and - a - half sword
worn in a shoulder harness.

   Ryba reached for the slug-thrower at her
hip.

   “That won’t do
much,” observed Nylan. “They’ll just
think it’s magic of some sort. I suspect that they only
recognize blades and arrows as weapons.”

   “I don’t care what
they call it. We have to stop them.”

   “Will it hurt to
talk?” Nylan asked. “They look too like us not to
be human.”

   “I suppose not, but if
they’re really human, they’re here to
fight.” Ryba’s eyes flicked toward the ridge where
the head marine stood. The snipers remained hidden. “Fierral
has her troops ready to gun down the whole mass of them if I give the
order.”

   “All of them?”

   “If necessary.”
Ryba’s face was hard. “People don’t like
facing the unknown. If they’re hostile, I’d rather
have them all disappear. We could plead ignorance in the future.
It’s hard to plead ignorance when there are
witnesses.”

   The three studied the riders as the
horsemen rode down toward the angel encampment. Beside the purple-clad
leader rode a man cloaked totally in white, and Nylan could even feel a
sense of whiteness, tinged with red, emanating from the man, who was
the only one not carrying visible weapons. That lack of weapons
bothered the engineer.

   “Watch out for the one in
white,” he said quietly as his hand drifted to the
standard-issue sidearm that he had never used against the demons of
light or their mirror towers.

   “I’ll keep that in
mind.” Ryba kept her broad shoulders square as she stepped
forward and somewhat away from the rocks.

   The horsemen drew up in a rough line, a
sort of half-circle centered on the small plot being ditched. The
marines in the plot had lowered their hoes, and their hands rested by
the butts of their sidearms.

   The man in the purple cloak reined up
well short of Ryba, inclined his head, and declaimed something.

   “Not good,” whispered
Nylan. “They know she’s in charge.”

   Ryba inclined her head slightly, then,
without turning her head, asked, “What did he say?”

   “The general idea is that we
don’t belong here.”

   “I could tell that
myself,” snapped Ryba, her eyes still fixed on the man in
purple.

   The leader of the locals added a few more
words, the last ending in what seemed a partial snarl.

   Ryba looked back at him, then responded
in an even tone. “I suggest you do the same to
yourself.”

   Purple cloak drew the big hand - and - a
- half sword, holding it at the ready.

   “Now what do you
suggest?” asked Ryba.

    “Put one of those Sybran
blades through him and run like hell from the guy in white,”
suggested Nylan.

   “I’m afraid we
can’t recognize your authority.” Ryba’s
voice was almost musical.

   Another sentence followed from the
local’s leader, and he gestured toward the heavens overhead.

   Nylan pursed his lips. Did the locals
know they had come from space?

   “Returning to where we came
from is clearly impossible,” Ryba responded.

   The sword jabbed skyward again.

   “No.”

   The purple-cloaked man barked a command.
The sword swept toward Ryba as he spurred his horse forward, as did the
other horsemen.

   “Fire at will!”
yelled Ryba.

   Even before the local’s heavy
blade was within a body length of Ryba, the purple-clad rider was
sagging from the big horse, a length of Sybran steel protruding from
his chest.

   The other horsemen continued to charge
whoever happened to be close, blades out and looking for targets,
maintaining a rough double-line formation. Only the man in white held
back, his eyes scanning the meadow area.

   Crack, crack, crack, crack…
Even the first staccato impacts of the marine slug-throwers that echoed
across the high meadow hurled nearly a dozen armsmen from their mounts.
One of the purple banners fluttered to the ground.

   The others ignored the sounds and rode
toward the handful of marines in the open.

   Crack! Crack! Crack! More slug-throwers
discharged, and more horsemen tumbled, their frozen faces wearing
expressions of disbelief.

   Nylan aimed at the man in white. Crack!

   Nothing happened, but the engineer had
the feeling that somehow the ceramic composite shell had fragmented
before it reached the target.

   Crack!

   With a long and dramatic-sounding set of
phrases, the man in the white tunic and trousers raised his right hand
and gestured.

   Ryba dove behind the nearest boulder, and
Nylan ducked. The two of them jammed together.

   Whhssttt! The firebolt seemed to bounce
off the rock, flared over the half-hoed field, and smashed across the
side of the nearest lander. White ashes cascaded onto the meadow. Where
the firebolt had struck was a gouge in the dark tiles that showed metal
beneath.

   “Frig…”
muttered Ryba. “Personal laser! Can’t believe
it.”

   Whhhsssttt!

   Another firebolt flared above them,
gouging a line of fire through the meadow clover.

   Whhhssstt!

   Crack! Ryba’s shot also failed
to reach the man in white.

   “That’s no
laser.” Nylan peered over the edge of the boulder, then
frowned. The man in white was gone, although Nylan thought he could
feel someone riding up the hill. More feelings that seemed to be
correct, and that bothered the engineer.

   “Where did he go?”
snapped Ryba.

   “Forget him!”

   Crack! Crack! Crack!

   Nylan lifted the slug-thrower as two
horsemen, low in the saddle, swept around the end of the rocks and
headed toward them.

   Both the captain and the engineer fired
again.

   Crack! Crack! Crack! When the hammer came
down on the empty chamber, Nylan scrambled to the other side of the
rock, emerging a moment later. His mouth dropped open as he saw Ryba on
one of the horses, chasing down, and slicing open one of the hapless
armsmen, and then another.

   “Get the damned
horses!” yelled Ryba before she rode uphill after a fleeing
mount.

   Nylan looked at the nearby horse, then
flung himself behind the boulder as another horseman galloped toward
him.

   Crack! Crack! Crack!

   The slugs whistled over Nylan’s
head, and one of Saryn’s shots dropped the horseman.

   “You’d better
reload!” suggested Saryn.

   “Thanks!” Nylan,
crouching behind the boulder, fumbled the second and last clip into the
slug-thrower. He hoped the marines had more firepower. He also hoped
they were better shots than he’d proved to be.

   When he scrambled up, there were no
horsemen nearby, just the mount of the man Saryn had dropped. Nylan,
ignoring his apprehensions about grabbing onto anything ten times his
size, grasped the reins of the nearby mount, which promptly reared.
“Now… now…” He tried to be
reassuring, but the horse reared again, nearly dragging him off his
feet before it settled down.

   Whhheeeee… eeeee…
eeee…

   “I don’t like it any
better than you do, fellow, lady, whatever you are.” Horses?
What was he doing hanging on to horses on an impossible planet? He
tried not to shiver and concentrated on calming the horse.

   Slowly, somehow, he managed, even as he
looked across the meadow. He swallowed. From what he could see, there
were large numbers of bodies strewn almost at random. Three of them,
beyond the plot, wore shipsuits.

   Absently, Nylan patted the neck of the
horse.

   Wheee… eeee…

   He glared at the beast that towered over
him, and, surprisingly, the animal seemed to whimper. Patting the
animal’s neck, he added, “Just take it
easy.”

   His eyes flicked across the meadow, then
toward the top of the hill where Ryba had reined up.

   “They’re gone, frig
it!”

   Nylan led the horse toward the lander
shells and the half-grubbed and ditched plot, not quite sure what to do
with the animal. At the least, he needed to find someplace to tether
it. Several marines were working over two angel bodies as he led the
horse toward the nearest lander, where, absently, he tied the reins
around an internal door loop. No one was going to be closing the door
anytime soon.

   Then he hurried through the fallen
horsemen. One moaned as Nylan passed. He looked down at the hole in the
man’s abdomen, and his guts twisted at the blood. The man
moaned again. Nylan knelt. There wasn’t much he could do.

   The soldier muttered something, blood
oozing from the corner of his mouth. Had he fractured ribs in his fall
from the horse? The man’s hand clutched Nylan’s,
and he muttered, “Nerysa…
Nerysa…”

   His hand loosened, as did his jaw.

   Nylan closed the dead man’s
eyes and slowly stood. Then he walked toward the group between the end
lander and the plot where three gathered around a prone figure in a
ship-suit.

   “It’s no
use.” One of the marines sat back and wiped her forehead.

   The unmoving figure was that of the
junior officer- Mertin. Above sightless eyes and streams of dried and
drying blood, his forehead looked slightly lopsided.

   The marine stood. “Those blades
are more like iron crowbars. Not much edge. Damned sword caved in his
temple. He just stood there and shot, never ducked He got about four of
them.”

   Nylan looked toward the other grouping.
“Who’s that?”

   “Kyseen, I think. Mangled leg.
Three of them hit her at once. She got two. The third got her with his
horse. She still got him.”

   Nylan shook his head. The entire fight
still seemed both horribly real and terribly unreal.

   From what he could tell, several other
marines were also down.

   From the hillside above, Ryba rode
downhill, leading three more riderless mounts. More to the west,
another marine and Gerlich were on horseback, trying to corner several
more of the riderless horses. Nylan counted nearly a score of mounts
being held, tethered, or chased.

   Nylan glanced back toward Kyseen.

   “Dumb bastard!”

   Since she sounded as though she had a
chance for recovery, and since he was certainly no medtech, he walked
back toward the uphill side of the lander shells where Ryba was
directing the construction of something where the horses could be
tethered.

   “Nylan!” ordered
Ryba. “Get a couple of marines and check the bodies. Those
that aren’t too badly wounded we’ll try to save for
information. Gather all the weapons, anything valuable, and have your
detail bury the rest deep enough that scavengers, or whatever they have
here, won’t get them. Keep any cloaks or jackets or armor or
boots-if they’re in good condition.”

   Nylan nodded. While he didn’t
like the idea, he understood the need.

   “Don’t bury any of
the dead horses yet.” Ryba made a sour face. “Maybe
we can butcher some and stretch out the concentrates.”

   Nylan frowned. Horse meat? Maybe it would
be better than concentrates, but he had his doubts. To stop thinking
about that, he asked, “Who got away besides the fellow in
white?”

   “Maybe a half dozen. One or two
were wounded, I think.” Ryba turned her mount toward the end
of the meadow where Gerlich lurched in the saddle as his mount nearly
carried him into an overhanging pine branch. “Use your legs,
Gerlich, and your head!”

   Nylan pointed to the three nearest
marines. “You, you, and you-we’re the scavenger -
and - burial detail.” He saw Huldran. “You too,
Huldran. We’ll start up by the rocks and sweep down. Carry
the bodies to the lower end of the meadow, near the
drop-off.” He gestured.

   “That’s a long
ways,” pointed out a tall woman, who, like him, had come out
of the mysterious underjump with silver hair.

   Nylan tried to remember her name. Was it
Llysette?

   “Llysette, it’s
downhill-”

   “It’s Llyselle,
ser.”

   “Sorry. In any case, Llyselle,
it is downhill and away from the water, and it’s going to be
hard to bury them deep enough to get rid of the smell. There are rocks
there, for a cairn, if necessary.”

   “Yes, ser.” The four
gave him resigned looks.

   “Why don’t we just
drop them over the cliff?” asked Huldran.

   “That would probably just cause
more trouble with the locals, and we don’t need
that.”

   “How would they know?”

   Nylan shrugged. “I
don’t know, but they’ve got something-call it
technology, call it magic. They knew Ryba was our leader, and they knew
we came from space or the local equivalent.”

   “Great…”
mumbled one of the other marines.

   “Stow it, Berlig,”
said Huldran tiredly. ‘The engineer’s usually been
right, and these days that counts for a lot. Let’s get on
with it.“

   ‘Take any weapons, knives, any
gadgets or coins. Jewelry, too,“ added Nylan. ”The
more we find, the more we might be able to figure out about these
people.“

   The sun had dropped behind the mountain
peaks by the time Ryba, Gerlich, and their work crew had completed a
makeshift corral for the captured mounts and by the time a large cairn
and five individual graves had been completed and filled in the
southwestern corner of the open area, just beyond the end of the meadow
and less than two dozen steps from the beginning of the drop-off.

   Saryn was by the cook-fire area, making
an attempt to butcher a dead horse. Nylan shook his head, but kept
walking toward the stream. He needed to get the blood and grime off
himself, if he could.

   Not much more than an eight-day and
already five were dead-Mertin and four marines. Then, again, reflected
the engineer, without the combat-trained marines and Ryba, things would
have been worse, much worse.

   Nylan bent down and washed the rock dust
and dirt from his hands in the narrow stream. Then he walked back
toward the lander where they had stockpiled the plunder, such as it
was, from the corpses. They had gathered nearly three dozen of the
heavy iron blades that scarcely seemed sharp enough to hack wood. After
thinking about Ryba’s Sybran blade and how she had sheared
right through the local plate and chain mail, Nylan shook his head.

   He neared the lander, and Ayrlyn, who
stood by the single remaining local. The man half sat, half lay almost
against the side of the end lander on a thin tarp. The pale green eyes
surveyed Nylan, and the man spoke.

   Nylan almost caught the words.

   “He’s asking if
you’re the only true man here,” said Ayrlyn from
his elbow. “He wants to give you his sword. Or he would if he
still had it.”

   “Honor concept, I
suppose.”

   “Only men have honor here? Are
we in trouble!” snorted the former comm officer. Her brown
eyes flashed that impossible shade of blue.

   “If I take his sword,
I’m responsible for him, I suppose.”

   “Something like that,
I’d guess.”

   “Does that mean he gives his
word not to escape, or is it meaningless nonsense?”
Nylan’s voice was hoarse, tired.

   “Who would know?”

   Nylan stared at the local.
“I’ll take his moral sword, or whatever. Tell him
that if he breaks his word, he’ll wish no one in his family
had ever been born.” Nylan was tired. Tired and angry, and he
just wished that things hadn’t degenerated into slaughter so
quickly.

   Even before the flame-haired comm officer
started to speak, the man paled, and words tumbled from his lips.

   Ayrlyn looked sideways at the engineer.
“For a moment, I thought you almost glowed.” She
shook her head, and fires seemed to shimmer in her hair.
“Whatever you did, he claims you’re his liege. His
name is Narliat.” She lowered her voice. “You did
something that scared the living darkness out of him. He called you
master or mage, something like that.”

   Nylan rubbed his forehead.
“This place makes me feel strange. It’s almost like
being on the net, except it’s not.” He almost could
understand the man’s words, and the language was somehow
familiar, but not quite. He kept rubbing his forehead.

   Ayrlyn looked at him. “It is
strange. I’ve had a couple of flashes like that, except
it’s more as though I could feel the trees or the
grass.” She glanced around nervously.
“I’m not crazy. I’m not.”

   “We’re probably just
tired.” Nylan looked at the prisoner. “Now
what?”

   “Tell him to stay here, and he
will.”

   Nylan did, and Ayrlyn repeated the words.
Narliat bowed his head.

   The two angels walked toward the cook
fire where Ryba waited. Nylan glanced to the rocky outcropping where a
pair of sentries were outlined against the twilit sky.

   The captain turned her head.
“How many in the cairn?”

   “Forty-three.”

   “Forty-three? That
many?” burst out Kyseen from the litter by the fire.

   “That few,” said
Ryba. “There were almost sixty, I think. Probably another
three or four were wounded. They’ll probably die, if the
locals’ medical care matches their weapons. That means almost
a dozen escaped.”

   “Killing two thirds of an
attacking force sounds pretty good,” pointed out Saryn.

   “I’m more worried
about the one in white,” mused Nylan. “It
wasn’t a laser, but he had a lot of power.”

   “It doesn’t make
sense. Whatever weapon he used burned right through the
lander’s ablative tiles like they weren’t
there-until it got to the thin steel undershell. That’s not a
laser. The ablative tiles would have stopped even a small weapons
laser.” Saryn winced as she shifted her position on the stone.

   “Call it magic,”
suggested Nylan.

   “Magic?”
Ryba’s eyebrows lifted.

   “There’s something
here like a neuronet-”

   “You think this is all
imagination? That we’re really trapped in the
Winterlance’s net?”

   “Oh,
frig…” muttered Gerlich.

   “No. There are too many
independent variables for a net to handle, especially the interactions
and apparent actions between individual personalities. Also,
there’s a feel about the net,” explained Nylan.
“It’s not here.”

   “Thus speaks the
engineer.” Gerlich’s tone was openly sarcastic.

   Nylan ignored it.

   “What do you think of the local
swords?” Nylan asked Ryba. “You’re the
only one with any experience, I think.”

   “Not quite,” said
Gerlich. “I did club fencing for a while.”

   “So did I,” added
another voice. “Sers…”

   Nylan looked at the wiry silver-haired
marine.

   “I’m
Istril,” the marine explained apologetically.

   “That’s a
help,” said Ryba slowly. “You’re all
going to have to use blades, I think, before the year is out, anyway.
Maybe sooner. Unless we can manufacture bows and learn
archery.”

   “Why…”
started a voice farther back in the twilight. “Oh…
sorry.”

   “Exactly. Fierral took
inventory. That little firefight cost us nearly three hundred rounds.
That’s actually pretty good. One in nine shells counted.
Except we only have about six hundred rounds left. That’s
maybe two battles like we just went through.” Ryba bowed to
the marine force leader. “Without the marines, we’d
all be dead or slaves.”

   Ryba turned to Nylan. “I fear
you were correct, Ser Engineer, about the need for a defensive
emplacement, a tower.”

   Nylan nodded. “You never
answered the question about blades.”

   “Most of their blades are
hatchet-edged crowbars. That hand - and - a - half blade the leader
carried is a fair piece of work, and so was one other thing like a
sabre. Why did you ask?” Ryba smiled tightly. “You
don’t ask questions, ser, unless you know the
answer.”

   “I saw what your blade did to
the local leader,” Nylan replied honestly. “I just
wondered what the comparisons were.”

   “If we could find blades like
mine, it would give us an advantage-not so much as slug-throwers-but I
don’t see those for a long, long time to come.”

   Neither did Nylan.

   “But,” continued the
captain, “I don’t know how we could find or forge
blades like mine.”

   Nylan frowned, then pursed his lips. Was
there any way? He shook his head.

   “What about the
language?” Ryba turned to Ayrlyn.

   “That doesn’t make
sense, either. It sounded like an offshoot of Anglorat,” said
the comm officer.

   Nylan nodded, mostly to himself. He
should have recognized it, but he hadn’t expected the demon
tongue to show up here. “What was that idiot saying? Where
were you, anyway?” asked Ryba. “Where you put
me… on the other side.” Ayrlyn gave a slight
shiver. “I didn’t get it all, and some of the words
didn’t make any sense, but the general idea was that we had
to surrender because we were trespassing on his lands-”

   “His lands?”

   “His lands.”

   “Darkness help us,”
said Ryba. “We would knock off the local ruler. That
can’t be good.”

   “It might be very
good,” mused Nylan. “Anyone else might decide to
wait a while before taking us on.”

   “Either that, or
they’ll all be up here on some sort of holy war against their
version of the demons. That’s what we probably look like to
them.”

   Nylan laughed.

   “What’s so
funny?”

   “We got here because we were
fighting the demons, and as soon as we land, we’re fighting
more demons.”

   “You think this place was a
Rationalist colony?” Ryba’s eyebrows knit together.

   “How could it be?
It’s not even in our universe,” snapped Gerlich.

   “Maybe they got here like we
did,” suggested Saryn.

   “We don’t even know
how we got here, not for sure,” pointed out Nylan.
“Or where here even is.”

   “You obviously have some ideas,
O Bright One,” snapped Gerlich. “So how do you
think we got here?”

   “We were at the focus of a lot
of energy, more than enough to blow the boards and the Winterlance
right out of existence. We’re still around, even if
it’s someplace strange-”

   “Are you sure we’re
just not dead, or imagining things?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “The physical sensations seem
rather intense for being merely spiritual and mental… and I
explained the limitations of a net…”

   “So you did.”

   Nylan turned to look fully at the taller
man. “So… listen. I’ll listen to your
knowledge. If we don’t listen and save every bit of knowledge
we have to share, we’ll be dead-or our descendants will
suffer more than they have to:-or both.”

   “That assumes we’ll
live that long,” snapped Gerlich.

   Ryba’s blade flickered again,
and the cold steel touched Gerlich’s neck.
“I’m getting very tired of having to use force to
keep you in line, but it seems like that’s all you
respect.”

   “Without that
blade…”

   Ryba handed the blade to Istril, the
small marine. “Hold this.”

   Gerlich looked puzzled.

   “Some people never
learn.” Ryba’s foot lashed out across the bigger
man’s thigh.

   “Missed, bitch.”
Gerlich charged.

   Ryba danced aside, and her hands blurred.
Gerlich slammed facefirst into dirt and clover, then scrambled up and
took a position, feet wide, hands in guard position.

   Ryba feinted with her shoulder, once,
twice.

   Gerlich did not move.

   The captain seemed to duck, then with a
sweep kick knocked Gerlich off his feet, although the brown-haired man
scrambled and slashed at her arm. Ryba took the arm, and Gerlich went
flying into the meadow.

   He rose slowly, holding his arm.

   “It’s only
dislocated,” snapped Ryba. “I could have broken
your worthless neck. So could most of the marines.”

   “Why didn’t
you?”

   “Because you have some stud
value. But I could break both your arms and keep that.”

   Nylan shivered at the chill in
Ryba’s voice. He looked up at the unfamiliar stars. They
looked very cold, and very distant.

   Gerlich slumped and slowly walked forward
toward the fire.

   “Jaseen, can you snap that back
in place?” asked Ryba.

   “Yes, ser.”

   “Do it.”

   Gerlich sat down on a boulder, while Ryba
reclaimed her blade and sheathed it. Nylan glanced across the faces of
the twenty-two women-all but the two standing in the rocks as
sentries-and then at Gerlich. Things were going to be
different… very different. He repressed a shudder.

 

 

XI

 

NYLAN LAY ON his side of the couch in the darkness listening
to Ryba’s soft and even breathing. A faint cold breeze wafted
forward from the open lander door, bringing with it the scent of fire
smoke and evergreens.

   The engineer closed his eyes, then opened
them. Less than six hundred rounds of ammunition-that was what stood
between them and being captured or killed by the locals. The battle
laser might be good for another skirmish, but it wouldn’t be
much good once the fighting reached the hand-to-hand stage, and that
meant a cold decision to wipe out the locals before they even charged
the angels.

   And after that? The locals
wouldn’t go away. It might be a few seasons or years before
they attacked again, but given human nature, they would. Then what
would the angels have left for defense? Ryba had agreed to build a
tower, and that meant he had to design one that was simple and
relatively quick to construct, big enough for growth, and proof against
a cold, cold winter that probably lasted more than half the local year.
Ensuring that the tower could hold off any lengthy attack also meant
figuring out a water supply that couldn’t be
blocked…

   He sighed.

   “You’re still
awake?” asked Ryba.

   “I thought you were
asleep,” said Nylan.

   “No. I was thinking.”

   “So was I. What were you
thinking about?”

   “You name it, and I was
thinking about it,” she answered slowly. “Weapons,
the locals, weather, crops, housing, your tower, the next generation,
how to feed horses through the winter, how to get to the
winter…”

   Nylan nodded, then added, as he realized
that, while he could see her, she didn’t seem to have the
same night vision he did, “I was thinking about the
tower.”

   “I told you that you could use
the lasers to cut stone to build the tower. Just make it big enough for
three times the numbers we have.”

   “Four,” suggested the
engineer.

   “If you can do it.
There’s not that much power in the firin cells.”
Ryba reached out and squeezed his hand. “It isn’t
going to be easy.”

   “No. And the building season
won’t be much longer than the growing season. Some of the
evergreens look solid enough, and straight enough to provide the
timbering we need. But we’ll have to cut green timber, and
that’s going to be hard with one axe and one portable grip
saw.”

   “You just can’t stack
stones on top of each other, though, can you?”

   “Not unless we want to use huge
blocks, and we don’t have enough people to move things.
We’ll need mortar of some sort, but there has to be clay
somewhere around here, and, unless I’m mistaken, there are
old lava flows across the way.”

   “What does lava have to do with
mortar?”

   “I haven’t found any
limestone nearby. So I’m hoping that I can either pulverize
some of the lava or that there’s some compressed ash that I
can use with the clay. It’s going to take a little
experimenting.”

   “What about glass?”

   “Shutters, probably, for the
first winter, except for what I can make out of the armaglass screens,
but they’re small. There’s one small handsaw
besides the grip saw. If the emergency generator holds up for a
while… if I can figure out how to make mortar…
if…” Nylan took a deep breath. “Too many
ifs…”

   “Yes.” She squeezed
his hand again, and he squeezed back.

   They lay silently for a time longer.

   “Those swords we got from the
locals aren’t much better than iron crowbars,” Ryba
finally said into the darkness.

   “That bothers you,
doesn’t it?”

   “You can’t forge
replacement shells for the slug-throwers, can you? Or make
powder?”

   “I could make black powder, if
I could find the ingredients, but it would destroy the guns within a
season, I think. There’s too much residue. That’s
even if I could cast shells out of the copper I don’t know
even exists.”

   “Better blades ought to be
possible…” mused the captain.
“Somehow…”

   The silence dropped over the couch again,
then lengthened into sleep as the scent of the fire was replaced with
the colder late-night air, the stronger smell of the evergreens, and
the hint of the oncoming rain.

 

 

XII

 

AFTER WIPING HIS forehead, Nylan handed the crude shovel to
Huldran. “Keep clearing this rock off, all the way downhill
to the stakes there. Make sure the dirt goes way outside the stakes, or
you’ll have to move it again.”

   “Yes, ser,” answered
the stocky blond.

   Nylan took his makeshift twine - and -
weight level and measured the slope of the clear rock shelf. The rock
ledge uncovered by the digging sloped enough that the tower foundations
would have to be stepped and leveled. With the brush of pine branches,
he gently swept the dust and dirt off the rock around one crack that
extended the length of the cleared area, bending down and using his
hand to gauge the width.

   On a flat expanse of rock to the west of
the tower foundation area, two marines took turns using crude stone
sledges on the chunks of reddish rocks. Beside them Saryn took a small
hammer and pulverized the small pieces into dust, and then swept them
into one of the few plastic buckets.

   Kkhhcheww!!! Chhhew!!!

   “Frigging dust!”
snapped the former second pilot, shifting her weight and the cast on
her injured leg.

   Kkkchew!!!

   Despite the sneezing, Saryn kept
pulverizing the reddish rocks.

   Over the hammering came another set of
vibrations. The engineer raised his eyes to see Ryba riding up, her
eyes surveying the area.

   “Are you still digging
holes?”

   Nylan glanced at the captain sharply,
then exhaled as he caught the glint in her eye. “Yes.
We’re still digging holes.” He gestured, then
swallowed, and continued the explanation he felt stupid making.
“If I get the foundation and the lower level right, the rest
will be easy. If not…”

   “I’m glad you take it
seriously.” She wiped her forehead.
“We’re going to need it, and a stable or barn as
well.”

   “I don’t know how
long the laser will last…”

   “It lasts as long as it lasts.
Then we try something else.” Ryba’s voice was
matter-of-fact.

   “Any signs of the
locals?”

   “Isrril thought she saw someone
in purple on the far ridge, but whoever it was didn’t stay
around. There’s a road down along the bottom of the ridge,
more like a trail. I’d say it’s one of the high
passes across the mountains, probably more direct, but
colder.” Ryba turned in the saddle, studying the fields and
the surrounding slopes, then looked back at Nylan. “Gerlich
says there aren’t any signs of local hunters in the higher
woods. Not much in the way of larger game, either. That cat seems to be
the top of the predatory chain. There are some goats, probably escaped
domesticated animals or their offshoot, some horned sheep, and a lot of
smaller animals, all off the mammal evolutionary tree. The goats and
horned sheep run at the first sign of anyone nearing. There are traces
of what might be deer, but no one’s seen any.”

   “Goat and mutton are the
animal-protein sources, then?”

   “And the deer. Horse meat,
possibly, and there have to be cattle, somewhere.”

   “Why?”

   “Where did the leather come
from for those saddles and reins? Or those vests?”

   Nylan felt stupid. “Of
course.”

   Ryba glanced toward the marines pounding
rocks, and toward Saryn, who wore a floppy hat she had scrounged from
the plundered goods. Ryba blotted her forehead, then steadied the
horse, which sidled away from Huldran. “Sandstone? Why are
they crushing that?”

   “Volcanic ash. It’s
almost too hard, but if we crush it and mix it with some other stuff,
and some of the clay at the base of the ridge, it sets pretty well,
maybe too well, sort of like a stone epoxy. We won’t be able
to mix much at once, and that’s going to be a
problem.”

   “It hardens too
quickly?”

   Nylan nodded. “All or nothing.
It either sets quickly, or it’s slop.”

   “When will you start actually
building?”

   “Not until I get the footings
set. Another couple of days probably. The first line of stones-that
will really be like a sill-has to be perfect. We’ll do a
double wall up to the third-floor level, fill it with stone chips and
clay for insulation-”

   “Whatever you think.”
Ryba nodded and turned the horse down toward the section of the meadow
that resembled a field of sorts.

   As she left, Nylan pondered. Did he
really need to cut all the stones? How big, or small, should they be?
What pattern would optimize the energy usage and prolong the
laser’s useful life?

   He took a deep breath, then laughed. He
was taking too many deep breaths.

   “No! I’m no
friggin‘ field hand! You take your turn in the fields, too!
Your ship’s scrap, and you’re no better than the
rest of us now.”

   Nylan looked downhill and to the eastern
part of the field from where the voice carried up across the meadow.

   One of the stocky marines, one of the few
not only bigger but broader in the shoulders than Ryba-Nylan thought
her name was Mran, but he’d never been good with names and
hadn’t been concentrating that much-held the crude hoe like a
staff, daring the captain to force her to return to work.

   Nylan missed Ryba’s response,
but she vaulted out of the saddle and handed the reins to Siret, one of
the three marines with silver hair like Nylan, and one of the more
quiet marines, though Nylan thought the deep green eyes saw more than
most realized.

   “Big trouble, ser,”
observed Huldran. “Mran’s tough, and
she’s a hothead.”

   The four other marines in the field drew
back, slightly, but watched as Ryba carefully slipped off the
crossbelts that held her blades and the belt and holstered
slug-thrower, then laid them across the roan’s saddle.

   Mran smirked-Nylan could sense the
expression as he and Huldran hurried downhill toward the field.

   Then Ryba said something.

   “You and who the frig
else?” demanded Mran.

   “Just me.”

   Except for his and Huldran’s
steps, and the faint rustling of the wind through the evergreens beyond
the meadow, a hush held the meadow. Even the few remaining starflowers
seemed held in stasis. Nylan wanted to shake his head, knowing what
would happen. Mran didn’t understand what Ryba really was.

   “You afraid or something,
Captain? ”

   “No… I’m
giving you one last chance to get back to work. If you don’t,
some part of your body won’t ever work right
again.” The words were like ice. “I
didn’t think even you were stupid enough to take on someone
raised as a nomad and wired as a ship’s captain.”

   “You don’t scare me,
Captain.”

   “That’s your problem,
Mran, not mine. Get back to work.”

   “Make me.”

   “All right. You were
warned.” With the last word, Ryba blurred, as her hardwired
reflexes kicked in.

   Mran tried to slash with the hoe, but
dropped it as Ryba’s foot snapped her wrist. The marine used
her good hand and reached for the pistol, but the captain followed
through with stiffened hands and an elbow. A second crack followed the
first, and Mran looked stupidly at the second damaged wrist-but only
for a moment before she crumpled into a heap.

   Ryba slowed to normspeed and smiled.
“Anyone else think I shouldn’t be in charge of
things?”

   “No, ser,” came the
ragged chorus.

   Her face hardened. “Surviving
in this place isn’t going to be easy, and I don’t
want to have to keep doing this sort of thing.” She glanced
toward Nylan. “I might add that the engineer, the second, and
the comm officer could have done the same thing, except that they
don’t have the advanced martial arts training, and they would
have had to kill Mran. Disabling is harder.” She smiled again
and looked down at Mran.

   The marine’s eyes unglazed, and
hatred blazed from them.

   “Next time, I’ll
break your neck first. The only reason you’re alive is the
same reason Gerlich is alive. There are too few of us for genetic
purposes, but you cause one single bit of trouble, and I’ll
drop you over that cliff without another thought. Do you
understand?”

   “Frig you!”

   Ryba took a deep breath. Then her foot
lashed out. Crack!

   Mran’s head snapped back, and
the lifeless body slumped onto the field.

   Ryba looked at the marines. “I
never want to do this again-ever. But I will if I have to. We
won’t survive if everyone thinks she can second-guess me.
I’ll listen to ideas, and I have, and I’ve taken
them. But there’s no room for this sort of thing.”

   As Ryba belted on the crossbelts, Huldran
turned to Nylan. “Hard woman.”

   He nodded. “I’m
afraid she’s right. According to our local source, old
Narliat, we’re regarded as the evil-doers from the skies, and
force of arms and surviving up here in the cold are all that are likely
to save us. More democratic systems don’t work well with
large egos, and marines and ship’s officers all have large
egos.” Nylan snorted.

    “Frigging lousy
situation.” Huldran’s green eyes glared momentarily.

   “Let’s try to make it
better.” Nylan shrugged, and turned to walk back toward the
incomplete tower. He didn’t know what else Ryba could have
done, not without creating even more problems in the days ahead, but he
didn’t want to talk to her at the moment. Even if some
people, like Gerlich and Mran, or Lord Nessil, the dead local leader,
seemed to respect only force, Nylan might have to accept it, but he
didn’t have to like it.

   He looked back to where Ryba mounted. He
suspected Ryba was shaking, inside-high speed took a lot out of a
body-but the captain seemed as solid as the stone Nylan labored over as
she turned the roan toward the next field.

 

 

XIII

 

“WHAT WILL YOU do with the cowardly wizard,
dear?” asks the heavyset and gray-haired woman who sits on
the padded bench in the alcove.

   The black-bearded young man pulls down
his purple vest and walks toward the empty carved chair with the purple
cushion, then turns back to face her. “Much as I distrust
Hissl, Mother dear, I wouldn’t call him cowardly. According
to the handful of troopers who returned, he was attacked, and he used
his firebolts. After Father and nearly twoscore troopers were killed,
he retreated. If he hadn’t brought them back, we still
wouldn’t know what happened for sure. Then I would have had
to rely on Terek’s screeing, and I don’t like that,
either. He’s even more devious than Hissl.”

   “All wizards are devious. That
was what your father said, Sillek,” the lady Ellindyja
responds.

   “He was right, but they have
their uses.”

   “What will you do with
Hissl?”

   “Nothing.”

   “Nothing? After he led your
father to his death? Nothing?” Ellindyja’s voice
rises slightly, its edge even more pronounced.

   “What good will killing him do?
We’ve just lost three squads of troopers, and it looks like
we now have an enemy behind us, right on top of the Roof of the World,
possibly able to close off the trade road to Gallos. Lord Ildyrom and
his bitch consort are building a border fort less than a half
day’s march from Clynya, and the Suthyan traders are talking
about imposing more trade duties. Sooner or later, we’ll have
to fight to take Rulyarth from them or always be at their
mercy.” Sillek pauses. “With all that, you want me
to kill a wizard and get their white guild upset at me? Create another
enemy when we already have too many?”

   “You are the Lord holder of
Lornth now, Sillek. You must do what you think best… just as
your father did.”

   “What good would executing
Hissl accomplish?”

   His mother shrugs her too expansive
shoulders. “The way you explain it, none. I only know that
difficulties always occur when white wizards are involved.”

   “I will keep that in
mind.” Sillek turns and walks to the iron-banded oak door,
which he opens. “Take the wizards and the others to the small
hall.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   Sillek holds the door to his
mother’s chamber and waits as she rises. They walk down the
narrow hall to the small receiving chamber where he steps up and stands
before the carved chair that rests on a block of solid stone roughly
two spans thick. The lady Ellindyja seats herself on a padded stool
behind his chair and to Sillek’s right.

   Seven men file into the room. The five
troopers glance nervously from one to the other and then toward the two
wizards in white. None look at Lord Sillek, nor at his mother, the lady
Ellindyja. Hissl’s eyes meet Sillek’s, while Terek
bows slightly to the lady before turning his eyes to Sillek.

   “Who has been in the forces of
Lornth the longest?” Sillek’s eyes traverse the
troopers.

   “Guessin‘ I have,
ser. I’m Jegel.” Jegel has salt - and - pepper hair
and a short scraggly beard of similar colors. His scabbard is empty, as
are the scabbards of all five troopers. The left sleeve of his shirt
has been cut away and his upper arm is bound in clean rags.

   “Of the three score who rode
out with Lord Nessil, you are all who survived?”

   “Beggin‘ your pardon,
ser, but we aren’t. Maybe a dozen rode down the trade road to
Gallos. Welbet led ’em. He said that you’d never
let anyone live who came back with your father left dead.”

   “That’s the way it
should be…”

   Sillek ignores the whispered comment from
his mother, but the troopers shift their weight.

   “Why did you come
back?” he finally asks.

   “My consort just had our son,
and I was hopin‘…” Jegel shrugs.

   “Did you ride away from my
father in battle?”

   “No, ser.”
Jegel’s brown eyes meet those of Sillek. “I charged
with him.” His eyes drop to his injured arm. “Got
burned with one of those thunder-throwers, but I followed him until
there weren’t no one to follow. Then I turned Dusty
back.”

   “Dusty?”

   “My mount. I ran into the
wizard at the bottom of the big ridge-him and most of the rest. Most
went with Welbet. The rest of us came back with the wizard.”

   “What did you think of the
strangers?”

   Jegel shivers.
“Didn’t like their thunder-throwers. One woman-she
was the one with the blades-she threw a blade, and it went right
through Lord Nessil’s armor, like a hot knife through soft
cheese. Then she took his horse, and slaughtered three, four of the
troopers with both the blade and the thunder-thrower, almost as quick
as she looked at ‘em.”

   “Were they all women?”

   “Mostly, ser. Except the one I
got. He had a thunder-thrower, but it did him no good against my
blade.”

   Sillek’s eyes turn to the
second trooper.

   “I be Kurpat, Lord Sillek. I
couldn’t be adding much.”

   “Did you leave my
father?”

   “No, ser.”

   Sillek continues the questioning without
finding out much more until he comes to Hissl.

   “And, Ser Wizard, what can you
add?”

   “About the fighting, Lord
Sillek, I can add little, except the thunder-throwers throw tiny
firebolts, much like a wizard’s fire, but not so
powerful.”

   “If they were not so powerful,
why are so many troopers dead?”

   Hissl bows his head. “Because
all of the strangers had the thunder-throwers, and because the
thunder-throwers are faster than a wizard. If your father had twoscore
wizards as powerful as Master Wizard Terek, there would be no
strangers.”

   “Pray tell me where I would
find twoscore wizards like that?”

   “You would not, ser, not in all
Candar.”

   “Then stop making such
statements,” snaps Sillek. “Don’t tell me
that twoscore wizards will stop the strangers when no one could muster
so many wizards. Besides, you’d all be as like to fight among
each other as fight the strangers.”

   “Pray answer a
widow’s question, Ser Hissl,” requests Ellindyja
from the stool on the dais. “How was it that you counseled my
consort to attack the strangers?”

   Hissl bows deeply. “I am not a
warrior, Lady. So I could not counsel the lord Nessil in such fashion.
I did counsel him that the strangers might be more formidable than they
appeared.”

   “But you did not urge him to
desist?”

   Hissl bows again. “I am neither
the chief mage of Lornth”-his head inclines toward
Terek-“nor the commander of his troops. I have expressed
concerns from the beginning, but the chief wizard advised me that,
since I could not prove that the strangers presented a danger, we
should defer to the wishes of Lord Nessil, as do all good
liegemen.”

   “You, Chief Wizard,”
Ellindyja continues, “did you counsel Lord Nessil to attack
the strangers?”

   “No, my lady. I did inform him
of their presence, and I told him that they were appeared likely to
stay.”

   “And that some were exotic
women, I am sure.”

   Hissl’s lips twitch.

   Sweat beads on Terek’s forehead
before he answers. “I did inform him that several, men and
women, had strange silver or red hair. I also told him that they had
arrived from the heavens in iron tents and that he should proceed with
care.”

   “You, Ser Hissl, did you bid
him proceed with caution?”

   “Yes.”

   “Then why did he attack
them?”

   “My lady,” responds
the balding wizard, “we rode up in peace, but the leader of
the strangers refused to acknowledge Lord Nessil, even when he drew his
mighty blade.”

   “I see. I thank you, Ser
Wizard.” Ellindyja’s voice is chill.

   Hissl offers a head bow to her.

   “Go… all of
you.” Sillek’s face remains blank as the five
troopers and the wizards walk quietly toward the door.

 

 

XIV

 

NYLAN ADJUSTED THE single pair of battered goggles and then
lifted the powerhead of the laser in his gauntleted hands. The wind
blew through his hair, and the puffy clouds scudded quickly across the
sky, casting quick-moving shadows across the narrow canyon where the
engineer stood. The chilly summer wind carried not only the scent of
evergreens, but of flowers, although Nylan could not identify the
fragrance. The starflowers had all wilted or dried up, but lower yellow
sunflowerlike blooms appeared in places, and long stalks that bore
single blood-red blooms jutted from crevices in the rocks at the
western edge of the meadow-and from between the rocks in the cairns.

   Fifty steps down the dry gorge stood a
horse harnessed to a makeshift sledge. Two marines-Berlis and Weindre-
waited by the horse for the cut stones that Nylan hoped he could
deliver. He also hoped the laser lasted long enough for him to cut a
lot of stones.

   He touched the power stud, and the laser
flared. Nylan could almost feel the power, like a red-tinged white
cloud, that swirled from the firin cells into the laser. He released
the stud.

   “What’s the matter,
ser?” asked Huldran.

   “Nothing major,” he
lied, thinking that it was certainly major when the ship’s
engineer imagined he could see actual energy patterns. His head
throbbed slightly with his words, and he massaged his temples. The
effect was almost like coming out of reflex step-up.

   The wind whistled through the branches of
the stunted pines farther back and higher in the narrow gorge. He
moistened his lips.

   “Are you all right,
ser?” The stocky blond Huldran bent forward.

   “I will be.” / will
be if I can get my thoughts together, he added to himself. As he looked
around the gorge, he wondered whether, if he cut the stones correctly,
he could also hollow out spaces so that the area in front of his
quarrying could eventually be walled up or bricked up for stables or
storage or quarters.

   Then he shook his head. He was getting
too far ahead of himself. The power swirl-why was it familiar?

   “Something… but
nothing bothers him… got nerves like
ice…”

   He tried to push away the whispers from
Weindre and concentrate on the power flow. Flow-that was it! It was
like a neuronet flow. He touched the stud again, briefly, and
concentrated, ignoring the sweaty feeling of his hands and fingers
within the gauntlets.

   The laser flared just for a microinstant,
but that was enough.

   Nylan squared his shoulders and studied
the rock, then aimed the head along the chalked line. The white-red
line of invisible fire touched the line. Nothing happened, except that
the rock felt warmer, hotter, redder.

   “Frig,” Nylan
muttered under his breath, as he cut off the power again.
He’d been certain that the laser would cut through the rock.
Lasers cut everything, from cloth to metal. Why wouldn’t they
cut rock?

   Because, his engineering training pointed
out, they burned through other substances, and the rock could absorb
more heat than cloth or sheet metal, and it didn’t accept the
heat evenly, either.

   “Problems, ser?”
Huldran blotted the sweat oozing across her forehead.

   “Some basic engineering I need
to work out.”

   He needed to work out more than basic
engineering.

   After taking another deep breath, he
triggered the laser once more and reached out with his thoughts, as
though he were still on the neuronet, ignoring the impossibility of the
setting, and smoothed the power flow. This time, the rock began to
smoke along the focal line of the laser, and a slight line slowly
etched itself along the chalk stripe.

   Nylan depowered the laser, and checked
the power meter-half a percent gone for nothing, nothing but a scratch
on black rock.

   “Ser?” Huldran
stepped forward to look at the black stone.

   “We’re getting
there,” he lied, pushing the goggles back and wiping his damp
forehead. “It’s slow. Everything’s
slow.”

   “If you say so, ser.”

   Could he narrow the focus, somehow use
the netlike effect to redirect the heat into a narrower line? If he
couldn’t, the laser wasn’t going to be much good
for stone-cutting.

   Replacing the goggles, he checked to see
that the head was set in the narrowest focus, then triggered the power.
As the fields built, he juggled the smoothing of the power flow and his
efforts to channel power into the thinnest line of energy possible. For
an instant, all he got was more stone-etching, then, abruptly, the
lightknife sliced through the black rock.

   Nylan’s eyes flicked to the
power meter-the flow was half what it should be. He stopped his-were
they imaginary?-efforts to smooth the flow and felt the red-white swirl
and watched the meter needle rise and the slicing stop. Hurriedly, he
went back to his not-so-imaginary efforts to reduce the laser power
flow fluxes, letting himself drop into the strange pseudonet feeling
that eased the energy flows to the laser and reinforced the energy
concentrations. Even though he had no scientific explanation for the
phenomenon, his efforts reduced the energy draw of the cutter by nearly
fifty percent, while cutting stone in a way he wasn’t certain
was possible, and he wasn’t about to turn his back on
anything that effective, whether he could explain it or not.

   As the tip of the laser reached the end
of the chalked line, Nylan eased it back along the second line, then
along the third, before releasing the stud. He wiped his forehead with
the back of his forearm, then knelt, adjusted the powerhead, and
positioned the laser for the undercut.

   Still concentrating, he powered the
laser, smoothed the flow, and drew it along the line. Then he released
the stud, and, using the gauntlets he had pressed into service to
protect his hands from rock droplets, he tried to wiggle the stone. The
whole line wobbled.

   He nodded and began the cross-cuts.

   When he finished those, the line of
clouds had passed, and the sun was again beating down on him. The first
individual building stone came away from the black rock easily, and
Nylan smiled and lifted the goggles.

   “Take ‘em away,
Huldran.” The stocky blond marine motioned to Berlis and
Weindre. “You two-come and help.”

   Nylan plopped down on a low stone and
wiped his forehead, feeling even more drained than when he had ridden
the Winterlance’s net, more drained than from overuse of
reflex boost. His eyes flicked downhill. Through the narrow opening in
the gorge he could see most of the field to the east of the tower site.
Thin sprigs of green sprouted from the hand-furrowed rows. To the
north, where he could not see, there were longer green leaves from the
field where the potatoes and other root crops had been planted in
hillocks.

   “These are heavy,”
grunted Weindre, staggering down to the sledge with a single block.

   “That’s the
idea,” said Huldran. “We can’t waste
power on small blocks. Besides, bigger blocks are harder to smash with
primitive technology. So stop complaining and get on with
carrying.”

   When the three had cleared out the
half-dozen blocks, Nylan stood and chalked more lines, longer ones, and
went back to work.

   By the time he had finished the next
line, his knees were wobbling. He sank onto the stone after he
depowered the laser and pushed the goggles onto his forehead.

   “Darkness-the
engineer’s white like a demon tower.” Huldran
looked at Nylan. “Don’t move.” She turned
to Berlis and Weindre. “You can still load those blocks on
the sledge. Berlis, you can lead the horse down the gorge and out to
the tower site.”

   The stocky blond marine looked at Nylan.
“I’ll be right back. Just sit there.”

   Nylan couldn’t have taken a
step if he’d wanted to, not without falling on his face, not
the way the gorge threatened to turn upside down around him.

   He sat blankly until Huldran returned and
thrust a cup in front of his face. He drank, and the swirling within
his head slowly subsided enough for him to take a small mouthful of the
concentrate-fortified sawdust called energy bread. He chewed slowly.

   Ayrlyn walked up the gorge carrying a
medkit, stepping around Berlis and the slowly descending horse and
sledge.

   “What happened to you? You look
like you stayed on boost too long.”

   Nylan finished the mouthful of bread.
“I think I overdid it.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “A variation on the law of
conservation of energy and matter, or something like that.”
Nylan wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm.

   Ayrlyn looked at Huldran, who looked at
Weindre. Weindre shrugged.

   “This place allows me to
operate on something like the neuronet, and I can smooth the power
flows to the laser and focus the laser into a tighter beam. That lets
me cut with about half the power. It’s not free,
though.”

   The flame-haired former comm officer
nodded. “Heavy labor? Like boost?”

   Nylan nodded.

   Huldran’s blond eyebrows
knitted in puzzlement.

   “On the ship’s
net,” Nylan tried to explain, “the fusactors supply
the power to sustain the net. It’s a small draw compared to
the total power expended by the system, but it’s real.
This… place… is different. I can replicate the
effect of the net-but I have to supply some form of power, energy- and
it’s just like working.”

   “That local in
white… ?” began Ayrlyn, her eyes widening.

   “Probably something like that,
but I don’t know.” Nylan finished off the chunk of
energy bread, and took another gulp of the nutrient replacement.
“It’s frustrating. I find a way to save power, and
it’s limited by my strength.”

   “It’s a lot faster
than using a sledge and chisel to quarry the rock,” pointed
out Ayrlyn.

   “It’s slow.”

   “Can anyone else do
it?”

   “I don’t
know.” Nylan shrugged. “I’d guess
it’s like being an engineer or a pilot or a comm officer. If
you have some basic talents, you can learn it,
but…”

   “Can you use the laser again,
and let me try to watch or follow?” Ayrlyn looked around.
“You two try also.”

   Nylan stood and stretched.
“I’ll cut a few.” He. used the chalk and
roughed out the lines he needed, then picked up the powerhead.
“Ready?”

   “Go ahead.”

   He dropped the goggles in place, touched
the stud, and began to smooth the fluxes, trying to be as gentle as
possible, and realizing that the gentle efforts were nearly as
effective and not quite so draining. After the first cut, he stopped.
“Well?”

   “I couldn’t see or
feel anything,* said Weindre. ”No,“ added Huldran.

   “There’s a sort of
darkness around you,” said Ayrlyn, “and that
darkness seems to focus the whiteness-it has a hint of an ugly red-of
the laser.”

   Nylan nodded. “That feels
right. Do you want to try it?”

   “No!”
Ayrlyn’s mouth dropped open after her involuntary denial.
“I… I don’t quite know why I said
that.”

   “Something in you feels rather
strongly. Do you have any idea why?”

   “The white of the laser. It
feels wrong… really wrong… disordered…
ugly.” Ayrlyn shuddered.

   “I couldn’t see
anything like that,” said Huldran, “but I watched
the power meter, and you’re using a little less than half
what’s normal, except for the first few instances. It seems
to be cutting better than I ever saw.”

   “What is this place,
anyway?” asked Weindre. “Who knows? A different
universe, maybe, where the laws of nature, physics, are different. Not
a lot different, or we wouldn’t be surviving, but
different.” Nylan picked up the laser again. “And
if we don’t get enough stone for the tower, we
won’t be surviving.” He disliked his own tone,
perhaps because it reminded him of Ryba’s attitude. What was
happening to him? He was seeing patterns and neuronets that
couldn’t be and getting ever more critical of Ryba. And yet
he worried about sounding like her. “You’ll have to
take it slowly,” insisted Ayrlyn.

   “Unless you can find someone
else who can do it,” pointed out Huldran.

   “Why don’t I see if I
can rotate some of the marines up here, just to see if anyone can do
it-or even sense what you’re doing?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “Fine. But there’s
only so much power here.”

   “I’ll send
them,” said Ayrlyn firmly. “Take your
time.”

   “Yes, mother fowl.”

   “Cluck,
cluck…”

   Nylan grinned and readjusted the goggles.
“Ready?”

   “Yes, ser.”

   He lifted the powerhead again.

 

 

XV

 

“HOW DID PEOPLE come here?” asked Ayrlyn,
moving back from the heat of the cook fire.

   “The old ones?”
Narliat edged toward the heat and half turned to face the redhead.
“The old ones came a long time ago.”

   In the growing late twilight of early
summer, Nylan sat behind the two, concentrating on Narliat’s
speech and trying to catch the meanings of the slurred and modified
Rationalist words.

   “… like you
strangers, they came from the skies… not in tents of iron,
but upon the backs of iron birds…” Narliat
gestured with the healing hand, and the missing thumb and forefinger
did not seem to hamper him as much as the still-splinted broken leg.

   “Were there people already
here?” asked the comm officer.

   “There were the druids, the
people of the Great Forest, and many others… especially
those in other lands beyond Candar-”

   “Candar?” asked Nylan.

   “Ah, the wizard, he does
speak.” Narliat turned to the engineer.
“Candar-that is all the lands that are surrounded by the
oceans here, the lands of Gallos and Lornth, and Jerans, and Naclos,
and Lydiar in the east.”

   “Candar is the name of the
continent,” said Ayrlyn.

   “It is Candar, not
continent,” explained Narliat. “Candar is where the
old ones landed… the old tales claim that the mighty iron
birds took all of the plains of Analeria to land. That is how big they
were, and their wings shadowed whole towns…”

   “Analeria is the high plains
region east of these mountains,” added Ayrlyn, brushing flame
hair from her eyes, still acting as a comm officer.

   “… and the old ones
were glad, for they had fled from the awesome ice lances of the angels
of Heaven. The wizards, the white ones, they say that you are fallen
from the angels of Heaven. Is that true?”

   “We’ve certainly
fallen,” quipped Nylan, slowly, in what he recalled from his
service indoctrination in Rationalist dialect,
“but-”

   “So they were right!”
Narliat’s eyes widened. “You are angels. Do you
freeze everyone to death who opposes you? Are you going to freeze
me?”

   “No,” said Ayrlyn and
Nylan, nearly simultaneously.

   “What does our friend have to
say?” Ryba, both blades on her hips, looked down at the three.

   “He was telling us about the
old legends. Sit down. If you can follow tangled Old Rat, you might
find it interesting,” suggested Ayrlyn.

   Ryba eased herself onto a cut-off
tree-trunk section that served as a seat. The remainder of the tree had
been laboriously cut into a handful of planks with the single
collapsible grip saw.

   “She is the cherubim-or a
seraphim. Truly, she was terrible,” stammered the local
armsman.

   “Terrible?” murmured
Ryba. “How delightful.”

   Nylan frowned, but only cleared his
throat.

   “You were telling us about the
old ones,” prompted Ayrlyn, “how they came to the
high plains of Analeria on the backs of the great
birds…”

   “Those birds, they had feathers
whiter than snow, and the tips of those feathers were like mirrors, and
they even turned back the sun… and the old ones brought with
them the knowledge of metals, and of the cold iron that turns back the
fires of chaos…” Narliat paused and looked up at
Ryba.

   Nylan followed the local’s
glance, trying to picture the captain as Narliat saw her-an angular
face, with a regular but sharp nose and high cheekbones, pale clear
skin that tanned only slightly, dominating and penetrating green eyes,
broad-shouldered and muscular without being overly stocky, and short
hair that had become so dark that it seemed to swallow light. In fact,
she looked like an avenging angel.

   ‘The fires of chaos?“
asked Ayrlyn. ”What can you tell us about the fires of
chaos?“

   “No wizard am I,”
declared Narliat, and his eyes went to Nylan, then back to Ayrlyn.
“Those who are wizards control the fires of chaos.”

   “Like the man in
white?” suggested Nylan.

   “Hissl? Yes, he is…
he was one of Lord Nessil’s three wizards.”

   “He still is,” added
Nylan. “He escaped. Hissl did, I mean. What about this
Nessil?”

   “Lord Nessil-your seraphim
killed him with the iron lightning she flung through him.”
Narliat coughed. “He was the lord of Lornth, and Lornth
claims the Roof of the World.”

   “Not anymore,” said
Ryba.

   Nylan’s eyes looked down toward
the cook fire where various small rodents had been spitted and were
being turned. The horse meat from the animals killed in the attack had
been tastier than the rodents, but not much. A lot of the meat had been
wasted, because they’d had no way to preserve it. Ryba
hadn’t been pleased with that, Nylan reflected, not at all.
Then, some days, she didn’t seem pleased about much. That
hadn’t changed much, though, not from when she’d
had a sound ship under her.

   On the far side of the fire, Gerlich
leaned close to a lithe marine-Selitra. The former weapons officer, who
had taken to wearing Lord Nessil’s hand - and - a - half
blade, said something, and they both laughed, but Selitra glanced
sideways at Ryba, who remained concentrating on Narliat.

   Charred and fire-roasted rodents, mixed
with the vanishing ship concentrates, were scarcely Nylan’s
idea of a good meal. Ayrlyn had found some roots that resembled-or
were-wild onions, but without cook pots, their culinary value was
minimal.

   “… the lords of
Lornth came out of the Westhorns here, many, many years ago, almost as
long ago as when the old ones came in from the skies on their mighty
birds with feathers like mirrors…”

   “Are there any traders that
cross these mountains?” interrupted Nylan.

   “Traders?” asked
Fierral from behind Nylan.

   “We’ve got some local
coin now, and some jewelry, and a bunch of blades. We could buy a few
things-like sledges or wedges, cook pots. Most traders don’t
care about politics.” Nylan cleared his throat.
“Maybe other things.”

   “But… to trade with
the angels… who would dare?” declaimed Narliat.

   Nylan suspected that, had it not been for
the stories, there might already have been traders, or some travelers,
on the high road that crossed the mountains and ran below the ridge
that led up to the high meadow.

   “Anyone who wants
coins,” suggested Ryba.

   Narliat looked blank, and Ayrlyn
translated.

   The armsman grinned.
“Skiodra.”

   “Is he a trader?”

   “That is what he calls himself,
but he is a thief, and his guards carry blades that are often in need
of sharpening.”

   “Sharpening?”
Fierral’s red hair glinted as she shook her head.

   “They get nicked when they
fight,” said Ryba dryly. “How do we find this
Skiodra?”

   “He will find you if you fly
the trade banner.”

   “We don’t have a pole
or a trade banner,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “Poles we can make,”
said Nylan, turning toward Narliat. “What does a trade banner
look like?”

   “A trade banner.” The
armsman shrugged. “It is a white banner with a dark square in
the middle.”

   “We can put something like that
together.”

   “With what?” asked
Ayrlyn. “I didn’t notice such things as needles or
thread in the survival paks.”

   “There are some needles in the
medical kits-for sutures,” said Ryba.

   Nylan frowned, wondering why Ryba was so
familiar with the medical kits. That hadn’t been her training
at all. Then again, as captain, she’d looked at everything.
He’d been mostly involved in solving the shelter problem.

   “We’ll also have to
make a show offeree when this Skiodra shows up.”

   Ayrlyn translated for Narliat.

   “Skiodra is very polite if you
are strong.” The armsman shrugged. “If not, you
become slaves, and he sells you to the traders from Hamor. That
happened to a cousin of Memsenn’s. She lived on a farm
outside of Dellash. One day Skiodra passed by, and when her consort
came home, she was gone. He chased Skiodra’s men, and they
killed him.”

   “Not a pleasant
fellow.” Fierral’s fingers went to her sidearm.

   “I don’t think any of
Candar is what we’d term peaceful,” said Ryba.
“The only way to ensure peace is through strength.”

   “That was what Lord Nessil
said. But… now that he is dead, it may be that the Jeranyi
will march, or the Suthyans.” Narliat edged closer to the
fire, then looked at the angels around him. “Truly, you are
people of the winter. Is Heaven cold?”

   “Colder than Candar, even than
here,” replied Ayrlyn, “except maybe in
winter.”

   Across the fire, Gerlich and Selitra
stood and eased away into the shadows, hand in hand.

   Ryba and Nylan exchanged looks.

   Ayrlyn snorted. “Poor woman.
Thinks she’s special.”

   “I’ve warned
them,” added Fierral, “but it does get
lonely.”

   “I would make you less
lonely…” volunteered Narliat.

   Fierral shot a look at Narliat, who
immediately glanced at the darkness beyond the fire.

   “He’s learning Temple
fast,” laughed Ayrlyn. “Even if it’s not
that different from Anglorat.”

   “Too fast,” said
Fierral.

   “Supper’s
ready,” called Saryn. “Such as it is.”

   At the call of supper, even Gerlich and
Selitra reappeared, no longer quite hand in hand.

   Nylan followed the others, getting his
helping of mush and chunk of blackened rodent, as well as a few berries
and a chunk of wild onion. The roughly circular wooden platter was the
result of a collaboration between some of the marines and Narliat.

   He sat farther from the fire, on a
boulder overlooking the landers, using his fingers and a crudely carved
spoon he had made. The slightly charred rodent was tastier than the
mush, but he ate both, and washed them down with water from the plastic
cup he had claimed and kept.

   Beside him, Ryba ate, equally silent.

   After he finished, Nylan stood.
“I’m going to rinse this off, and rack it, and wash
up. Then I’m going to collapse.”

   “Wait for me.” Ryba
finished her last mouthful of mush. “I won’t be too
long. I have to check with Fierral to make sure the sentries are
set.”

   “All right.” Nylan
walked over to the side branch of the stream, diverted for the purpose
of washing, and rinsed off the wooden platter, then used the scattering
of fine sand to wash his hands. After that he rinsed them and splashed
off his face.

   “Next,” said a voice.

   He looked up to see Ayrlyn standing
there. “Sorry.” He stood and moved away from the
stream.

   She smiled. “You
don’t have to be.”

   “You’re doing well
with Narliat.”

   “He figures he’d
better do well. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Besides,
he likes the ratio of men to women.”

   “Has anyone…
?”

   “Right now, Ryba would have
their heads, but that won’t last. She probably knows that,
too. She thinks of everything.” Ayrlyn paused.
“Just be careful, Nylan. She uses everyone.”

   He nodded, hoping the darkness would
cover his lack of enthusiasm.

   Ayrlyn bent to rinse her platter, and
Nylan walked to the lander, passing a pair of marines on the way. One
was Huldran, the stocky blond who helped with stone-cutting; the other
a solid brunette whose name he had not learned.

   “Evening, ser.”

   “Good evening, Huldran. Are you
on sentry duty?”

   “Not tonight. Not
tonight.”

   Once in the forward area of the lander,
Nylan pulled off his boots. Then he sat in the darkness for a time
barefooted, before he pulled off the shipsuit that, despite careful
washing, was getting both frayed and stained.

   When Ryba still did not appear, he
finally stretched out, folding the cover back to just above his waist.
His shoulders and his forearms ached, and his feet hurt. He also
worried about Ryba-their relationship. A lot of the time she was
distant, commanding, just like he imagined an antique nomad-liege of
Sybra. Of course, that was her heritage, and Candar seemed to reinforce
those traits.

   In the distance, he could hear laughter,
but could not recognize the voices.

   As his eyes began to close, he heard
footsteps on the hard floor of the lander, and he propped himself up on
his elbow. “I told you I wouldn’t be
long.” Slowly, Ryba slipped out of her boots, and then out of
the shipsuit, and eased under the thin cover. Her lips were cool, but
found his, and her skin was like satin against him.

   Later-much, much later-they eased apart,
although Ryba’s hand held his for a moment.

   “Don’t go
away.” Ryba rolled away from Nylan. “I’ll
be back in a moment.”

   “Where would I go?”

   She ruffled his hair slightly and pulled
on her shipsuit over her naked body, thrusting her bare feet into her
shipboots- boots that were beginning to wear, as were
everyone’s.

   Nylan wondered absently if traders had
boots, or if footwear would become yet another problem. He leaned back
on the couch, letting the cool air from the door waft over him.
Sometimes… on the one hand, Ryba was a good leader, captain,
whatever, and she was receptive, sometimes aggressive in
sex… and yet… he sometimes felt more like an
object than a person.

   His eyes closed. It had been a long day,
as were they all, and he.was barely aware when Ryba returned, slipping
off her suit and lying beside him under the thin blanket that was
almost too hot.

 

 

XVI

 

THE SUN HAD barely cleared the trees on the eastern side of
the sheer drop-off at the base of the meadow when Nylan laid the
endurasteel brace and the crowbarlike local blade beside one of
Ryba’s Sybran blades. Beneath the blades was a crude quench
trough, half-filled with water and the hydraulic oil for which there
was really no other use-not for centuries, probably.

   Then the engineer walked around the
working space outside the base of the unfinished tower construction.
Should he consider a dry moat as well? He shook his head. Half the year
or more a moat would be a bug-filled mess, and the other half the high
snows would render it useless.

   “Stop spacing out. Get on with
it,” he muttered, turning to the firm cells. The power bank
was down to twenty percent, and the system wouldn’t work at
levels below twelve. His eyes went to the windmill, which turned in the
lighter morning breeze. The cell being charged was over eighty percent.
Another day might find it at ninety percent if the wind picked up,
if…

   Nylan laughed ruefully. Far less than a
day of continuous heavy laser usage would discharge one bank of cells,
and it would take nearly half a local season to recharge the individual
cells in just one of the four banks they had brought down from the
Winterlance. The more he tightened the beam and the shorter the energy
pulse, though, the less the effective power drain, and that meant some
things were less power-intensive. Darkness knew he’d better
find less power-intensive ways to use the laser.

   With a little more than half the stone
for the tower cut, he’d exhausted two banks and most of the
third. The emergency charger had recharged three cells, but each bank
held ten. Still… he had gotten more proficient with managing
the laser’s power flows, and each row of stones took a shade
less power. Also, the cut edges and leftover chunks could be used,
perhaps for the less exposed inside walls.

   Terwhit… terwhit. The call of
one of the birds-a green and brown scavenger-drifted across the high
meadow from beyond the field, along with the smoke from the small cook
fire.

   The engineer studied the curves of the
Sybran blade again, with his eyes, senses, and fingers, frowning as his
senses touched a slight imperfection in the hilt. Then he grinned. Who
was he deceiving? He was no bladesmith, just a dumb engineer trying to
figure out how to counterfeit a workable sword while no one was around
to second-guess him if his idea didn’t work-using
questionable techniques in an even more questionable environment.

   Terwhit. With a rustle of feathers, the
small greenish-brown bird flitted from a twisted pine in the higher
rocks behind the partly built tower toward the firs in the lower
southwest corner of the high meadow.

   Nylan ran his fingers over the Sybran
blade again, then picked up the endurasteel brace he had unbolted from
one of the landers. Again, he forced himself to feel the metal. It also
had several imperfections hidden from sight-Heaven-based quality
control or not.

   Finally, he powered up the firin cell
bank, pulled on the goggles and the gauntlets, and picked up the heavy
brace. After readjusting the laser, he pulsed the beam, slowly cutting
along what felt like the grain of the metal. He pursed his lips,
considering the apparent idiocy of what he did- guiding a laser with a
sense of feel he could not even define to create an antique blade out
of a brace from a high-tech spaceship lander.

   The heavy tinted goggles protected his
eyes, although he realized that he wasn’t using his vision,
but that sense of feel, a sense that somehow seemed to break everything
into degrees of something. What that something was and how he would
categorize it were more questions he couldn’t answer.

   He didn’t try, instead
releasing the power stud and letting his senses check the cut and the
metal-which felt rough, almost disordered.

   With another deep breath, he flicked on
the laser and spread the beam for a wider heat flow, using his senses
and the power from the laser to shape and order the edge of the blade,
trying to replicate something like the feel of the . Sybran blade.

   After the second pass, he unpowered the
laser and pushed back the goggles, wiping his forehead. Then he bent
and picked up the plastic cup, swallowed the last of the water in it,
and set the empty cup back on the ground beside the cell bank where the
power cable wouldn’t hit it.

   One of the marines-Istril-sat atop one of
the rocky ledges and watched as he readjusted the goggles and studied
the model blade again.

   Once more, he picked up the metal that
had been a brace and triggered the laser, shifting his grip, and trying
to ensure that his gauntlets were well away from the ordered line of
powered chaos emanating from the powerhead.

   After his first rough effort at shaping
the blade, he turned to the curved hand guards and tang. As he shaped
the metal, he tried to smooth it, just as he once had smoothed power
fluxes through the Winterlance’s neuronet. When the rough
shape was completed, he unpowered the laser and checked the cells-a
drop of less than one percent so far. Not too bad for a first try.

   He pushed back the goggles and blotted
the area around his eyes, then studied the blank blade. Even with one
rough cut, the shape looked better than the local metal crowbars.

   He could feel Istril’s eyes on
him, but he did not look toward the rocks. The smoke from the cook fire
was more pronounced, as was the hum of people talking. He did not look
toward the landers, either. Instead, he inhaled, then exhaled deeply
and replaced the goggles and lifted the laser.

   Trying not to feel like an idiot, he
triggered the laser and continued to use his mental netlike sense and
the power of the laser to work the metal, almost to smooth the grains
into an ordered pattern while trying to create the equivalent of a
razor edge on both sides of the blade.

   By the time he finished with the laser,
not that long it seemed, sweat poured down his forehead, out and around
the goggles, and his knees trembled. Done with the laser, he set the
powerhead down and waited as the metal cooled toward the color of straw.

   The oil - and - water mixture in the
crude trough felt right, but whether it was… time would
tell. Using the modified space gauntlets, he swirled the mixture in the
trough and eased the blade into it, letting his new sense guide the
tempering-or retempering. Then he laid the blade on the sheltered sunny
side of the black boulder where it would complete cooling more slowly.

   He set aside the goggles and checked the
power meters- a drop of one percent, maybe a little more. He nodded. He
could make something that looked like a blade, but was it any good?

   As he saw Ryba’s
broad-shouldered figure striding grimly toward him, he offered himself
a smile. He’d get one opinion all right-and soon.

   “Why did you take my blade? It
had to be you. No one else would-”

   Nylan held up a hand to stop her.
“I’m guilty. I didn’t hurt it. I needed a
model, and I didn’t want to feel like a fool.”

   “Model for what?”

   His eyes turned toward the flat rock
where his effort rested.

   “Darkness! How did you do
that?”

   “Art, laser, dumb luck-all of
the above. Don’t touch it; it’s still hot enough to
burn your skin, and I don’t know if it will work. It looks
right; it feels right, but I’m no swordsman. It could shatter
the minute it’s used. I don’t think so, but it
could.”

   Ryba stepped up to the blade and looked
down at the slight curves of the deep black metal.
“It’s beautiful.”

   “Technology helps,”
Nylan admitted. “But I don’t know if it will even
work. It could break apart at the first blow.”

   “I don’t think it
will.” Ryba looked at him. “It looks like it will
last forever.”

   “It doesn’t matter
what it looks like. It’s how it feels and lasts.”

   She studied the blade again. “I
need to teach you more about using blades. It would be a shame for
someone who can create this not to be able to use it well.”

   “You don’t even know
if it’s right.”

   Ryba’s dark green eyes met his.
“About some things, I can tell.”

   Nylan shrugged.

   “How many of these can you
make?”

   “Over time, enough for
everyone, and probably a few more. I’d guess a little less
than a two-percent charge on the bank for each. But I don’t
want to do that many until we’ve got enough stone for the
tower.”

   “We need both.”

   “It will take more than half a
season with the portable generator to fully charge a whole bank of
cells. We’ve gone through nearly three banks, and that only
leaves one that’s completely full. We’ll probably
have the first recharged before we finish the tower. I
haven’t done the math, but I could probably forge ten blades
on a depleted bank if I recharged two cells. But I need a base load of
twenty percent for stone-cutting.”

   “You’ve got piles of
cut stone here,” pointed out Ryba.

   “It’s not
enough.” He shrugged. “Right now, the
mortar’s the problem, but I think I’ve got that
set.”

   “That’s a terrible
pun.”

   “Didn’t mean it that
way.”

   The former captain looked at the smooth
and sheer black stone wall that rose nearly twice her height, then at
the square door frame whose base stood nearly her height above the
visible base of the tower. “You’re building a
demon-damned monument.”

   “Why are you letting me? Could
it be that I’m right?”

   Ryba laughed. “The others look
at this, and they all see that it can be done, and that we’re
here to stay. Nothing I say is as effective as your killing yourself.
They all see how you drive yourself. But is everything that
you’ve planned really necessary?”

   Nylan pointed to Freyja-the ice-needle
peak that towered above the unfinished tower, above the other
mountains. “You can tell from the ice on those peaks that the
winter is as cold, if not colder, than northern Sybra. Also, a tower
isn’t enough. We need stables, and next year, we’ll
need more storehouses, and workrooms for all the crafts we’ll
need to develop, and we’ll have to defend them all.
I’ll end up cannibalizing the landers for metal and
everything else, because that’s easier than trying to develop
iron-working from scratch or than trading for it. Once we run through
the plunder, what can we use to buy goods? Or food? I certainly
haven’t seen traders galloping to find us. Also,
there’s going to be a gap between when we lose all high
technology and when we can master lower technology.”

   Ryba looked at the blade. “What
gap?”

   “It would take me days to forge
a blade like that with coal or charcoal and hammers. Maybe longer, and
that’s if I knew what to do. That’s if I had an
anvil, if I could find iron ore, if…” He snorted.
“How long will the emergency generator and the charging
system last? Maybe a local year… and it might quit in the
next eight-day.”

   “Then you’d better do
at least a few blades, and others, as you can fit them in.
We’re going to need them. I hope not soon, but we
will.”

   Nylan wiped his forehead.
“I’ll try to balance things. Has anyone heard
anything about this so-called bandit trader? Can’t we get
something from him? Big cook pots, even cutlery?”

   “I’m working on a
list. What do you think we really need?”

   “Some heavy cloth, wool maybe,
and something like scissors, to cut it, thread and needles.
We’re not equipped for winter. There were-what?-two
cold-weather suits in the paks? Any dried or stored food we can buy.
What about something like chickens… for eggs? The
concentrates might last until mid-winter. Salt. Some of that stuff
Gerlich kills could be dried and salted. Oh… I need to
figure out how… never mind…”

   “What?”

   “I’ll use the laser
to glaze it. That will make cleaning it easy.”

   “What?” repeated Ryba.

   “The water reservoir, cistern,
whatever you want to call it. I’d like it to be on the second
level in the center, but I don’t know if I can work that. I
still haven’t quite figured out piping or a reservoir near
the head of the spring. We’ll run hidden piping, like a
siphon, so we can have some continuous water flow in winter or if we
get besieged…”

   “You are a pessimist.”

   “A realist.”

   “Probably,” she
admitted. “What if the laser goes?”

   “There are two spare powerheads
and a spare cable. I can use the weapons head, if I have to, but the
power loss is enormous, and that might not work at all. If it goes now,
we do it the hard way, and not nearly so well, and people die. If it
lasts into winter, then I should have the basics done”

   “Dreamer.”

   Nylan grinned ruefully.

   “Go get something to
eat.” Ryba motioned to Istril, who had edged down the rocks,
and who hurried up in response to Ryba’s preemptory gesture.
“Istril… would you watch this equipment while the
engineer eats? Don’t touch it, and don’t let anyone
else, either.” Ryba pointed to the blade that Nylan had used
as a guide. “Use that if you have to.”

   “Yes, ser.”
Istril’s eyes flickered to the.black blade on the stone.
“You made… that… ser?”

   “I tried,” conceded
Nylan.

   “It’s
beautiful… sometime… could you forge me
one?”

   “Istril should get one of the
first ones.”

   Nylan sighed and nodded at the slight
silver-haired marine. “It’s cool now. Pick it up
and see if it’s half as good as it looks.”

   “You mean it?”

   Ryba and Nylan nodded.

   Istril touched the hilt-designed to be
wrapped in leather-and slowly lifted the blade. She stepped back and
lowered it, then smiled.

   “Is it tough enough?”
Nylan asked. “Bend it or something.”

   Ryba lifted her blade. “Just
blade to blade.”

   Nylan watched as they fenced, the silvery
metal of the Sybran blade glittering against the black of his.

   After a time, they both lowered their
weapons, and Ryba wiped her forehead. A moment later, so did Istril.

   “I think it might be better
than mine,” said Ryba, “at least in blade work. It
might not be balanced right for throwing.”

    “It’s
beautiful,” said Istril.

   Ryba looked at Nylan.

   He nodded at Istril.
“It’s not perfect, but you may have it. The hilt
needs to be wrapped.”

   “It’s too good for
me.”

   “Then you’ll have to
get better for it,” said Ryba. “In return for the
blade, you’ll have to teach the engineer how to use
one.”

   “Can I start now?”

   “After I eat, and only for a
little,” said Nylan. “We’ve still got a
tower to build.”

 

 

XVII

 

“I WAS NOT exactly amused by your reference to the
chief wizard the other day before Lord Sillek,” begins Terek.

   “You are the chief
wizard,” points out Hissl calmly, “and I only spoke
the truth. To have done otherwise…” He shrugs.

   “There is truth, and there is
truth,” says Terek slowly, shifting his bulk as he ambles
toward the table with the screeing glass upon it.

   Hissl remains silent.

   “Let us see if you can find
anything which may impinge upon these… fallen angels. For if
something does not, sooner or later we will be called to help avenge
Lord Nessil’s death.”

   “The longer before we ride to
the Roof of the World, the better.”

   “I would prefer never to ride
there,” replies Terek.

   Hissl concentrates. The white mists part,
and a half-built tower appears, a tower whose walls seem as smooth as
glass and as dark as winter water unruffled by wind. A silver-haired
man struggles to position a long slab of stone to form the top step in
a wide stone staircase.

   “Great
wizardry…” mumbles Hissl, the sweat beading on his
forehead from the effort to maintain the image.

   “It would take a score of
scores to take that tower even now with the weapons they
have.” Terek paces away from the table. “Those
stones seem steeped in order.”

   “Could you not fire
it?” Hissl relaxes, and the image fades.

   “Now-but what if they roof it
with split slate? It would be two or three eight-days before Lord
Sillek could assemble a force and ride there. Can you see Lord Sillek
building siege engines upon the Roof of the World?”

   “He could,” suggests
Hissl. “Anything is possible for a great lord.”

   “You are so dense. What would
Lord Ildyrom be doing once he discovered Lord Sillek and his engineers
and most of his armsmen were upon the Roof of the World?”

   “So Lord Sillek leaves them
alone? Is that so bad? It’s only good for summer pasture
anyway, if. that. What does he lose?”

   “Honor… face. We
told Lord Nessil about the strangers. If his son and heir cannot defeat
them, what do you think he will do to us? And it will be us, not just
me, Hissl.” Hissl pulls at his chin. “It could be a
cold winter.”

   “In irons below the castle,
your hands and arms would be burned apart-if you lasted that
long.” Terek glances at the glass. “See if you can
find anything else.”

   “What?”

   “Anything.”

   Hissl concentrates once more, and a band
of riders now appear in the screeing glass, with one of the lead riders
bearing a white banner with a dark square in its center.

   “Traders…”
mused Terek. “Almost armed like bandits.”

   “Skiodra,
probably…” muttered Hissl, the sweat beading more
heavily on his forehead with the effort of holding the second image.

   “Can you open it a little
more?”

   Hissl concentrates, and more sweat pours
off his forehead, even as the mists widen to reveal dark pines and
rocks, and a needle peak in the background.

   “It looks like the Westhorns,
along the high road toward the Roof of the World.” Terek
smiles. “Skiodra is just the type to steal what he can and
destroy the rest. He only trades when he has to .”The chief
wizard rubs his hands together.

   “What if he trades them
weapons?” Hissl releases the image and blots his forehead.

   Terek frowns and stops rubbing his hands.
“That’s not the problem. They have weapons. They
have more weapons than they have soldiers, if that’s what
those women in dark gray are. What if they trade weapons for goods?
Even a poor sword is worth half a gold.”

   “You said Skiodra is not much
better than a bandit:”

   “Let us hope he is an effective
bandit-a very effective bandit.”

   Hissl nods, but his eyes drop to the
glass.

 

 

XVIII

 

NYLAN STUDIED THE staircase again, considering the wisdom of
such a massive central pedestal. He’d had five purposes in
mind-to provide a central support for the square tower, to make
flooring each level easy, to provide an interior storage space, to
allow for firm stone steps, to provide for chimneys, and to provide an
interior air tunnel for ventilation. All that was well and good, but
its construction had slowed that of the tower wall, still only slightly
above the second level.

   He put his foot on the nearest brace,
wiggled it gently. Because Nylan had no really accurate way of
calculating loads, he was estimating and feeling the bracing, setting
the stripped logs that formed the bracing for the floors only about
three handspans apart.

   “Cessya, this isn’t
solid on the outside.”

   “Weblya is bringing up some
wedges now. Then we’ll mortar it in place.” Using
the crude tripod crane, Cessya and another marine eased another timber
toward the stone-lined slots.

   “Frig! It’s still too
big. Needs more trimming.”

   As the big roan bearing Ryba neared the
tower, Nylan stepped away from the long flat section of stone that
would anchor the next section of the staircase and started down the
stone stairs.

    Ryba had tied the roan’s reins
around one of the larger building stones when Nylan met her. She now
carried one of the Sybran blades and the second blade Nylan had forged
in the other Sybran scabbard-as well as the bolstered slug-thrower.

   Nothing like a walking armory, he
reflected. “Where have you been?”

   “I’ve been checking
out the approaches from the west. We’re better protected than
I thought. You can’t get here except by coming up the ridge.
I stopped to see how you were coming before I go check out the road.
There still haven’t been any signs of travelers-just scouts
from Lornth.”

   “How do you know?”

   “They wear purple. Subtleness
isn’t exactly ingrained in the local culture.” Ryba
started up the steps. “Let’s see how things are
going.”

   “Not bad, actually.”

   When they reached the spot where Nylan
had been working, he glanced down toward the fields and the meadows
that surrounded them, now dotted with the small sunflowers. A
silver-haired marine weeding in the field suddenly dropped her hoe and
dashed across the ditch, where she vomited.

   “Ryba? Did you see
that?”

   “What?”

   “Look down there. She looks
sick.” The engineer pointed.

   “That’s Siret.
She’s sick, but it’s not an illness. I suspect her
contraceptives have worn off-if she’s been taking them at
all.”

   “I haven’t seen
Gerlich with her.” Nylan didn’t think the
thoughtful silver-haired marine was the type to go for Gerlich.

   “Who’s been
looking?” Ryba shrugged.

   “You did make a point about
stud value with him.”

   “That’s
true.” Ryba half laughed. “You’d think
you were building this tower to stand forever.”

   “I figure that it will be a
generation before anyone can expand on what we build. If
they’re prosperous, fine. If not, this buys them
time.”

   “Assuming we can finish
it.”

   “We could roof what we have now
and get better shelter than the landers.”

   “You’re talking four
levels?”

   “Six. We’ve almost
cut enough stone for five on the outside walls, and I could do the
inside walls with mortar and uncut stones if necessary.”

   “What about heat?”

   “I’m thinking about a
crude furnace. But that’s the reason for a tower with an
underground foundation, except we’ll cover part of the lower
level with stone and soil on the outside. Heat rises, and
that’s going to be important in the kind of winter we have
here.”

   Ryba shook her head.
“You’d better hope the laser holds out. Or that you
learn to forge with local materials.” She paused.
“Is there any way you could shape those local blades into
something better? That wouldn’t take as much power as cutting
and forming them from the lander braces, would it?”

   “I don’t know. Do you
want me to try?”

   “Let me think about it. How
many of those killer blades have you done?”

   “Three so far.”

   Ryba glanced toward the ridges where
Nylan had quarried the black stone. “We’re going to
need more. Demon-damn, we’ll need more of
everything.”

   “I know.”

   “What about the
stable?”

   “We can’t do
everything. I’ve been cutting the stone so the space could be
used for storage, or for stables. The overhead would be low.”

   “Outside of spacecraft, Nylan,
they’re called ceilings.” Ryba laughed.

   “I might get used to it
someday.” He cleared his throat, then shrugged his shoulders,
trying to loosen them. “Back to work.”

   The sound of hooves echoed from the west,
and Ryba glanced toward the top of the ridge and the approaching rider.
“Kadran’s in a hurry. We’ve got close to
enough mounts, but not nearly enough people who know how to
ride.”

   “Most of us were raised to ride
ships, not horses.”

   “Look where it got
you.”

   Nylan grinned ruefully. Sometimes, he
really wondered about Ryba. She was planning to build a culture, a
kingdom, as a matter of fact, without even a look back. She’d
killed one marine and threatened to cripple Gerlich. At the same time,
Nylan didn’t see that much of an alternative, not when
everyone seemed to respond only to force.

   He moistened his lips. For all
Ryba’s apparent indifference to the past, the engineer still
couldn’t help wondering about his family, his sister Karista,
and his mother. They’d all be told he was dead, and he wished
they knew he was alive. He shrugged to himself. Assuming they were in
another universe, was it better for them to think of him as dead? No,
but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

   Ryba had already left the tower to wait
for Kadran. Like all the marines, Kadran was full Sybran-big and tough.

   Nylan looked up the uncompleted
staircase, then turned and followed Ryba. He’d like to know
what was happening, and Huldran would ask.

   “There’s a bunch with
a trading flag riding up toward our banner,” announced Kadran
as she rode up. “They’ve got a lot of weapons
showing.”

   “That’s probably wise
in this culture,” said the captain. “We’d
better respond in kind.”

   “Ser?” asked Kadran.

   “You find Fierral, and have her
get all of you ready for another attack. It shouldn’t come to
that, but our local friend says some of these traders will take
everything you have if you’re not tough.

   “Tell Istril to come with me,
and get Gerlich and have him wear that big crowbar he’s so
fond of. And have Ayrlyn and Narliat come.” Ryba turned to
Nylan. “You, too. That will make three and three.”

   “I wouldn’t know how
to swing one of those things. I’ve had maybe three lessons,
and Istril died laughing the first time,” protested Nylan.

   “Strap on a pistol and the
blade. The locals don’t see the slug-throwers as weapons. We
need to get moving. Meet me over by those rocks as quickly as you can.
I need to gather up the coin and jewelry we’ve got, and some
of those crowbars that pass for blades.” Ryba untied the
reins and vaulted into the saddle of the roan.

   As Ryba and Kadran rode off, Nylan
shouted up into the unfinished structure. “Huldran! Cessya!
Weblya! We’ve got company. Drop what you’re doing,
and form up with Fierral.”

   “Where, ser?”

   “Up by those rocks, I think. On
the double!”

   Huldran laughed.
“That’s Svennish.
‘Double-quick’ is marine.”

   “Double-quick, then.”

   Nylan began to half walk, half run toward
the lander that held his sidearm and the blade he had formed and did
not still know how to use.

   By the time he had reclaimed his gear and
splashed water on his face and hands to get rid of the worst of the
dirt and grime, and hurried up to the meeting point, Fierral and two
others watched from the top of the western ledge, the weapons laser
ready.

   Nylan hoped they didn’t have to
use it. He fingered the pocket torch he had gotten from the lander,
wondering if such a simple item would be useful, but he wanted
something that would suggest power that didn’t involve
hurting or killing anyone else.

   The remaining sixteen marines-all wearing
sidearms- were deployed in two groups, each group with a clear field of
fire. Kyseen, her face white, and her leg still in a heavy splint, sat
on a boulder at one end of the rocks with the easternmost group.

   The traders, dressed in half-open quilted
jackets and cloaks, had halted downhill from the trading banner.

   Ryba glanced around the group, all in
thin uniforms or shipsuits, some still sweating from their haste.
“Before we start… the one thing we don’t
trade is any of our weapons- or the new blades Nylan has
forged.”

   “Those blades… they
are worth golds… many golds,” suggested Narliat.

   “They’ll cost us far
more than that if the locals get their hands on them. We can trade any
of the captured blades, but that’s it.”

   “How much are those
armsmen’s blades worth?” Nylan asked Narliat.

   “Whatever Skiodra will
pay.” Nylan gave the smaller man a sharp look. Narliat
stepped back a pace, then stammered. “That is true, but the
worst of them would have cost Lord Nessil nearly a gold.”

   “Good. That should
help.”

   “Let’s go.
We’ll leave our pile of trading goods here.” Ryba
fingered the leather pouch at her waist that contained almost all their
local coins.

   The six walked slowly down to the banner.
“Where do we stop?” Ayrlyn hissed to Narliat. Her
eyes flashed blue.

   “A dozen paces this
side.”

   As the six angels stopped, eight of the
traders stepped forward, leaving perhaps a dozen men with the horses
and the four carts.

   The traders stopped on the far side of
the banner. For a moment, the only sound was that of the wind, and the
faintest dink of harness chains from the traders’ cart horses
below. After another moment, the biggest trader, wearing a huge blade
like the one Gerlich bore, and a breastplate, stepped forward another
two paces. “I am Skiodra,” he declaimed in Old
Anglorat with an unknown accent so thick that Nylan could barely follow
the simple declaration. “You wish to trade?”
Skiodra inclined his head to Gerlich, the biggest man in the angel
group.

   Before Gerlich could speak, Nylan stepped
forward and smiled politely at the bandit-trader.
“Yes.” Then he gestured to Ryba. “This is
Ryba…” He groped for the Old Anglo-rat word, and
added, “Our marshal… leader.”

   Skiodra squinted slightly. One of the
traders behind Skiodra, with a bushy blond beard, grinned broadly.

   “And you do not let anyone else
do the speaking, O Mage?”

   Mage? Nylan certainly hadn’t
thought of himself as a mage, especially with a blade in an ill-fitting
scabbard strapped around his waist.

   “Pardon…”
Narliat cleared his throat and looked at Ayrlyn and then Nylan.

   Nylan nodded.

   Skiodra’s eyes flicked to the
splint on Narliat’s leg and to the ruined hand. The blond man
behind him continued to grin.

   “Honored Skiodra,”
began the armsman from Lornth, “best you and your men tread
lightly with your laughter. Lord Nessil did not, and he lies under a
pile of rocks above the cliff. Even his wizard could not save him.
The… marshal”-he struggled with the unfamiliar
word-“hurled one of those angel blades through his
breastplate. Never in my years as an armsman, never have I seen
anything more terrible.”

   “You may not have seen
much,” suggested Skiodra, before looking past Narliat to
Nylan and then Gerlich. “Can she not speak for
herself?”

   “I…
speak…” answered Ryba in Anglorat, “but
not your words well.”

   “How do we know you speak the
truth?” asked Skiodra. “This…
minion… speaks well, but fine words are not truth. Nor do
they buy goods.”

   “Does that matter?”
asked Nylan. “You are traders. We would trade. If you
insist…” He shrugged and turned to Gerlich.
“Take out that crowbar, slowly, and show it to
him…”

   A thin trader with a scar on his face and
a mail vest showing through a tattered tunic scowled at the word
“crowbar.”

   As Gerlich extended the hand - and - a -
half blade, Skiodra’s eyes widened.

   “That… it is a great
blade,” he admitted.

   “Put it away,”
commanded Ryba. “Just be ready.” Without letting
her eyes leave Skiodra, she said in an even voice to Nylan,
“Tell him that he’s dead meat if he tries anything
funny, but that we can probably make him some credits or whatever they
call it.”

   “You understand that,
Narliat?” asked Nylan.

   “Yes, ser.” Narliat
cleared his throat. “Most skillful trader… you
have seen Lord Nessil’s great blade. Lord Nessil came here
with threescore armsmen. A dozen or less escaped with their
lives…”

   “Why do you speak for
them?”

   Narliat looked down at the splint and
raised his ruined hand. “What else would you have me do? They
are angels, and who with wits would cross them?”

   “I see no angels.”

   Ryba stepped back and raised her hand.

   Hhsssttt!

   A single flare of light flashed, and the
top of the pole and the trading banner that had flown from it vanished.
A few ash fragments drifted down around the Candarian traders.

   Nylan tried not to wince at the power
used in that quick burst.

   Narliat gulped, but cleared his throat.
“I did say they were angels.”

   Skiodra managed to keep his face calm.
“Why would angels trade?”

   “We could not bring everything
we need with us,” answered Nylan haltingly. “Do you
not buy food when you travel?”

   “You only want food?”

   “Or something that provides
food, like chickens.”

   “The great Skiodra does not
deal in chickens, like some common…
peasant…”

   “Let him offer what he
has,” suggested Ayrlyn. “Don’t ask for
anything.”

   Narliat glanced at Ryba, then Nylan. They
nodded at Narliat.

   “Noble Skiodra…
since my masters know not what you might have to offer, it might be
best for you to show what you have.”

   “You might best do the
same.”

   Narliat looked to Nylan, who nodded again.

   “We will bring some
goods,” answered Narliat.

   Skiodra lifted his hand, and the four
carts began to wind their way up from the road at the bottom of the
ridge.

   Ryba turned and gestured. Four armed
marines moved toward the piles of supplies near the top of the ridge.

   Nylan looked westward to the darkening
clouds that promised the first real rain since they had landed.

   The first cart held barrels.

   “That-the orange
one,” explained Narliat, “that is dried fruit from
Kyphros. The white ones are flour. The seal means it was milled in
Certis…”

   “How much do they - generally
run?” asked Ayrlyn.

   Narliat glanced nervously from the
redheaded comm officer to Skiodra, who cleared his throat.

   Ryba put her hand on the hilt of the
blade Nylan had laser-forged.

   “Uh… I
couldn’t be saying, ser, not exactly, since it’d
depend on when Skiodra bought them and where.”

   “Three silvers for the flour
and a five for the fruit,” said Skiodra.

   Narliat’s eyes widened.

   Nylan snorted.
“That’s about triple what the trader paid for
them.”

   “You wish to travel to Kyphros
to get them for yourself?” asked Skiodra.

   “Excuse me,” said
Nylan. “Four times what he paid. Maybe five.”

   The slightest nod from Narliat confirmed
his revised guess.

   “So, the noble trader
paid-what?-half a silver for each barrel of flour, and he wants three.
Six times… that’s nice if you can get
it.” Nylan laughed.

   “Ah… my
friend… how would you pay for the feed for all those horses
and men? It is not cheap to travel the Westhorns-and the flour, it came
from Certis, and those fields are on the other side of the
Easthorns…”

   The engineer repressed a sigh. A long
afternoon lay ahead, and the air was getting moister with the coming of
the storm. “A half silver a barrel for your expenses, for
each two barrels, I could see,” he added. “That
would be more…”-he groped for the
word-“fair.”

   “Fair? That would be
ruin,” declared Skiodra. “You mages, you think that
because you can create something for nothing that every person can.
Bah! Even two silvers a barrel would destroy me.”

   Narliat’s eyes flicked back to
Nylan.

   “Such destroying…
that would buy you fine furs. Even a handful of…”
He looked at Narliat.

   “Coppers?”

   “Coppers. Even two coppers in
gain a barrel would make you the richest trader.”

   “I said you were a mage. That
may be, but your father had to be a usurer. You would have my men eat
hay, and my horses weeds. Even to open trading, as a gesture of good
faith, at a silver and a half a barrel, I would have to sell the cloak
off my back.”

   In the end, they agreed on nine coppers a
barrel for the ten barrels of flour.

   “What do you have to
offer?” asked Skiodra, as a boy, acting as a clerk, chalked
the number on a long slate and showed it to Nylan. It looked like a
nine, but Nylan still glanced toward Ayrlyn and Narliat, who nodded.

   “Try the small
sword,” suggested the armsman.

   Nylan presented it.

   “A nice toy for a youth, but
scarcely worth much,” snorted Skiodra.

   “Lord Nessil paid a gold for
it,” asserted Nylan.

   “A gold, and he was a rich lord
who was cheated, or sleeping with the smith’s
daughter…”

   It was going to be a longer afternoon
than he had thought. Nylan refrained from taking a deep breath.
“Lords don’t have to bargain, noble Skiodra. If
they think they are being cheated, they kill the cheater. The blade is
probably worth two golds, but a gold is what he paid, and
it’s scarcely touched.”

   “Your father and your
grandfather both were usurers, Mage. How your poor mother
survived… I might consider, out of sentiment, and because of
your audacity, five coppers for that excuse of a
weapon…”

   The sun, had it been visible through the
heavy clouds, would have been nearly touching the western peaks before
Skiodra packed what remained back into his carts and departed-not quite
smiling, but not frowning, and promising to be back before harvest.

   “So what do we have?”
Fierral’s eyes went from the carts of Skiodra to the
supplies, but the redheaded marine officer’s hand stayed on
her sidearm.

   The piles, bales, and barrels represented
a strange assortment of goods. Besides nearly thirty barrels of flour,
corn meal, and dried fruit, and a waxed wheel of yellow cheese, there
were bolts of woolen cloth, a pair of kitchen cleavers, two large
kettles and three assorted caldrons, two crude shovels, an adz, two
sets of iron hinges big enough for a barn door, but no screws or spikes.

   Nylan looked away from the assorted goods
and held out his hand, feeling the tiny droplets of rain. As he
listened to the rumble of distant thunder, he frowned, feeling that the
clouds almost held something like the Winterlance’s neuronet.

   Ayrlyn looked from the clouds to Nylan.
“I know.”

   Ryba frowned, then asked Narliat,
“You think they’ll be back?”

   Narliat shrugged. “Maybe yes,
maybe no. It matters not.”

   “It doesn’t
matter?” asked Ayrlyn, brown eyes questioning.

   “Others will come,
now.”

   Nylan hoped so. They needed more
supplies, a lot more, if the winter were anything like he thought it
was going to be. And they needed something like chickens. He thought
chickens could last the winter if they were in a place above freezing
out of the wind. Then he took a deep breath, realizing that was just a
hope. What did he really know about anything like that?

   “I hope so,” said
Ryba, echoing his thoughts. A low rumbling of thunder punctuated her
words. “We need to get this stuff into the landers or under
cover.” Ryba turned. “Fierral? Have your people get
this stored. The cloth needs some dry places-maybe lander three. Nylan,
how much covered space is there in your tower?”

   “Not a lot yet,” the
engineer admitted. “Only the bottom level of the center is
covered yet, and that’s where the lasers and firin cells
go.”

   “Then it will all have to go in
the landers for now. That will make things tight.”

   “I’ll see about
getting the next level floored and roofed,” said Nylan. As he
hurried back to ensure that the lasers were stored against the oncoming
rain, he wondered if he would ever get caught up to the needs they
faced.

   He fingered the torch in his pocket, and
gave a half-laugh. He’d never even thought about using the
beam. That was the way so many things worked-when it came time to use
them, he forgot or did something else.

   Overhead, the thunder rolled, and the
fine rain droplets began to get heavier, and the sky darker.

 

 

XIX

 

THE RAIN STILL fell the next morning, but the droplets were
fine and sharp, carried by the winterlike wind out of the ice-covered
heights to the west. Low clouds obscured Freyja and all the mountains,
except for the ridges closest to the landers. Even the partly built
tower seemed to touch the misty gray underside of the clouds.

   Nylan paused in the door of the lander,
looking down at the gooey mess below. After a moment, he stepped into
the mist-filled air, and his boots squushed in the mud. Some of the
clumps of grass-even the yellow flowers-bore a snowy slush, and he
looked back at Ryba. “This is one of the better reasons to
get the tower finished. We’re not going to have dry and sunny
weather all the time.”

   His eyes dropped to the mud underfoot,
and he frowned. “We need clay.”

   “Clay? What does that have to
do with rain and weather?” Ryba stepped into the gusting rain.

   “I should have thought of it
sooner. We’ll need bricks, and maybe I can make some clay
pipes for water and the furnace. The right kind, and I can make a big
stove so people won’t have to keep cooking over
fires.”

   “You’re still hung up
on that furnace, aren’t you?”

   “The main hall will have a big
hearth and fireplace in case it doesn’t work.” He
shrugged. “We also need to get water from the springs to the
tower, and that means pipes.”

   Ryba laughed. “You’d
think you’d been born doing this sort of thing.”

   “Hardly. I hope I
don’t make too many mistakes. I’m overlooking a lot
of things, except”-he snorted-“I don’t
know what they are because I’ve overlooked them.”

   They stopped before reaching the cook
fires, and Ryba studied the fields, wiping the water from the ongoing
drizzle from her face. A long, boot-deep trench crossed one corner of
the potato field, and one hill had been undercut by the running water.
Two marines were reclaiming it, while a third was digging a diversion
trench across the uphill side of the field.

   “Denalle, would you finish that
demon-damned diversion so we’re not fighting water and the
frigging mud?” demanded one of the two trying to keep the
potato hill from collapsing into the narrow stream of cold water.

   “Stow it, Rienadre. You want to
fight through these plants, you do it. They got roots tougher than
synthcord. I’ll be happy to change places with you.”

  
“Shüittt…”

   The two marines in the field stood up as
the gooey mass of soil collapsed into the still-widening trench.

   “We’re going to help
you, Denalle, before we lose more.” Rienadre and the other
marine trudged toward the edge of the field.

   “This really isn’t
that good a locale for crops,” Nylan said.

   “I know, but until we can
develop more trade and maybe find some animal that does well up
here…”

   “Sheep or winter deer or
something. Even chickens or some sort of domesticated fowl.”

   “None of which we’ve
seen,” Ryba answered curtly. “Not chickens, and the
goats scatter into the rocks if they so much as hear a hoof
click.”

   They walked through the drizzle to the
cook-fire area, where Nylan got a slab of bread that Kyseen had tried
to bake in a makeshift oven and some purple food concentrate. He looked
at the off-white center and nearly black crust of the bread, so flat
that it looked more like a pancake. He supposed that was because Kyseen
had no yeast or whatever made bread rise. After another look at the
black-edged mass, he broke off a section and chewed. The bread was only
half-cooked and soggy in the middle, but-if he avoided the carbonized
outside-it tasted better than the purple concentrate.

   Nylan frowned. Some of the partitions in
the landers were thin metal. Perhaps he could unbolt them, and without
too much power usage, turn them into baking sheets for the oven he
hadn’t built. After a laugh, he took another mouthful of the
soggy bread. He was thinking about making items to fit in things he
wasn’t sure he could build, and that assumed that he found
something like clay, that he could turn it into brick, and that the
laser held out-just to begin with.

   He finished the last bit of the heavy
slab of bread and the slice of the pungent yellow cheese, rinsed his
wooden plate, and set it back with the others, and went to find Ryba.

   He found her talking with Fierral at the
far side of the cook fires.

   “Rain or no rain, we need some
sentries. The locals are tough, and I don’t want someone
lofting arrows into us. Or whatever.” No bowman was going to
risk ruining good strings in the rain, Nylan felt, but he said nothing.

   “Yes, ser,” Fierral
answered, then looked toward Nylan, her red hair plastered against her
skull by the dampness.

   “I wanted to talk to Istril
about where I might find some clay.” Nylan brushed the water
off his forehead to keep it from running into his eyes.

   “You’re not going to
work on the tower?” asked Ryba.

   “I’m not about to
take out the lasers in this weather. The timbers will have to dry
anyway before they’re mortared and wedged in place.”

   “What about the clay
you’re using in the mortar?”

   “That’s not quite the
same. Without the ash…” Nylan shook his head.
“Besides, I’m hoping to find something
that’s easier to use and fire. Istril said that
she’d seen some spots that might be clay, somewhere down
below.”

   “Wouldn’t the locals
already be using it?”

   “Large deposits, yes. I just
want enough for bricks to build some inside walls, maybe a stove, and
some water pipes.” Ryba shrugged and turned to Fierral.
“Can you spare Istril?”

   “That won’t be a
problem, Captain. Or should we start calling you marshal?”

   Ryba grinned. “Whatever
works.”

   Istril was still sleeping in the third
lander, and, while Nylan washed up and went to find out something about
the horse situation, she ate.

   When Istril arrived, the slim marine
vaulted into her saddle. Nylan climbed into his, banging himself with
the blade he had forged and still barely knew how to swing without
hitting himself.

   Thankfully, Istril let her horse walk
uphill toward the tip of the ridge that seemed almost into the mist
that hung below the clouds. Nylan let his beast follow.

   “I don’t know as what
I saw, ser, is what you want, and it’s down a little ways. It
wasn’t like dirt, and it was almost slimy.”

   “All we can do is look. That
sounds promising. Even if it is clay, it will take some experimenting
to see if we can fire it.”

   “Fire it?”

   “Turn it into things-pipes for
water, bricks, maybe things like plates or pots. That means building a
kiln or an oven of sorts.” He grabbed the horse’s
mane as the beast lurched downhill.

   They rode in silence until they reached
the exposed section of the ridge, little more than a narrow way
bordered on each side by rocks that dropped sharply away. Most of the
rocks on the north side were still covered with ice left from the
winter that held some of the night’s snow above it.

   Nylan looked down toward the forests that
began well below the bottom of the ridge. They would have to circle
back along the bottom of the ridge on the north.‘In the
distance, kays below, he could see and sense a narrow stream emerging
from the rock pile. He massaged his back. “How long will this
take? Isn’t there a shorter way?”

   Istril led the way down the ridge line,
keeping her mount close to the windswept hard rock near the center.
“Be a while, ser, but you don’t want to take the
short way down there.”

   “What short way?”
Nylan’s words came out as he bounced in the unfamiliar
saddle, reflecting that any saddle would have been unfamiliar.

   The silver-haired marine laughed.
“Over the cliff. Where we’re headed is really just
below the landers. A long way straight down.”

   “Oh.” Nylan
readjusted his weight in the saddle.

   By the time they reached the bottom of
the ridge and crossed the cold narrow stream, Nylan felt the tightness
in his legs. The rain had dropped off more to a soft mist, and the
clouds above appeared a lighter featureless gray.

   “Sometimes we see those scouts
in purple, but lately they’ve pulled back. Don’t
see any travelers, but Narliat says that we won’t until it
gets warmer, toward midsummer. People don’t cross the
Westhorns that much.”

   “That’s what they
call these mountains?” asked Nylan. “The Easthorns
are the other big range, then.”

   “Guess so.” Istril
drew her blade and ran through a set of what looked like blade
exercises as the horses paralleled the small stream. When she finished,
she wiped the blade on a scrap of something tucked in her belt and
sheathed it. “Good blade, ser.”

   “Thank you. I wish I could use
one the way you and Ryba do.”

   “Practice. Never thought
I’d have a real use for it.” She laughed softly and
leaned forward in the saddle. “There! Look up on the
hill.”

   Nylan looked. A tawny catlike creature
vanished behind a bushy pine.

   “Those are the big cats. They
don’t like us much. I think there are something like bears,
too, but I’ve only seen tracks.”

   ‘Nylan glanced up at the nearly
sheer rock wall that began on the far side of the stream.
“Hard to believe we’re up there.” He
looked back toward the thick trunks of the evergreens where the big cat
had vanished. Would it have been better to bring everything down the
ridge?

   “It’s less than a kay
ahead, in and out, just above where the other little stream
joins,” explained Istril.

   The two streams joined below a
reddish-brown mound that held some bushes Nylan didn’t
recognize, and only clumps of grass. Just above where the two streams
joined, a narrow log, a fallen fir limb, lay half in and half out of
the water. A brownish green frog smaller than Nylan’s fist
squatted on the water-peeled limb, then plopped into the stream and
vanished.

   After dismounting and tying the horse to
an evergreen branch, he jumped across the stream, nearly plunging back
into it when his worn shipboots skidded on the slippery ground. He
grabbed a bush and steadied himself, then bent down and scooped up some
of the clay, almost as plastic as dough. The consistency seemed right,
but how could he tell? “Can we start a small fire
here?”

   “I can probably find some
sticks.” Istril brushed a lock of silver hair back over her
ear and dismounted.

   While the marine gathered brush and some
small branches, Nylan experimented with the protoclay. It looked right,
felt right, but would it fire right? He rolled out several small balls
with his hands, then some flat sections, and one small crude potlike
shape, then another.

   His striker, when he had finally used
Istril’s knife to scrape some-thin dry shavings, worked in
getting the fire started. They added drier branches and waited until
there was a small bed of coals, on which Nylan, after wetting his hands
in the chill water, placed his test items.

   Then he washed the reddish clay off his
hands in the water that chilled all the way up his arms. While the clay
balls and flat sections baked on the coals, coals that occasionally
hissed in the few drops of water falling from the gray sky or nearby
trees, Nylan slowly trudged up the narrow gorge, looking up to his
right as he went. Up there, somewhere, was the plateau where the
landers rested.

   Istril trudged beside him, looking more
to the sides as she did. “Doesn’t look like many
people have been here.”

   “Probably not. You saw how cold
those traders looked- and we were sweating.” Nylan stopped
and looked up the cliff. If they had rope… perhaps they
could get some rope the next time-if there were a next time…
if the traders had rope. He studied the cliff. The vertical was still
more than four hundred cubits, and probably treacherous at the top.
Plus… the fired clay wouldn’t be that strong and
that meant any sustained banging against the rocks would probably crack
it unless it were heavily padded-and that meant even more rope and
equipment.

   If he built the firing hearth up the
branch of the creek, which would be dry most of the time- He pulled at
his chin. Either the clay went up on horses, or the finished bricks and
pipe did.

   There was enough wood nearby. He hoped
the two-person saw they had bought from Skiodra would help in cutting
wood for the firing. Or would it be needed for planks and timbers?
Could they use one of the smaller saws on the deadwood to get firewood?
Why did he think things would be simple?

   Finally, he turned and started back down
to the coals.

   “Be a long trip to bring things
up,” observed Istril.

   “Very long. But
there’s a lot of wood here, and not nearly so much up
there.”

   “That makes sense,
ser.”

   Nylan hoped so.

   He used a stick to ease one of the balls
out of the coals. While the ball had cracked in two, the half coated
with ash seemed hard enough. The other side was still damp in parts.

   While he could feel that the clay was
right, he decided to wait a while longer for the other pieces. He had
the feeling that, so far as the clay and brick works were concerned,
he-or someone-was going to be doing a lot of experimenting, and a lot
of waiting.

 

 

XX

 

“I SEE YOU still intend to let those women flaunt
their defiance at you from the Roof of the World.” The lady
Ellindyja holds the needlework loosely.

   “When did you take up
needlework?” asks Sillek.

   “When I found myself no longer
useful to the Lord of Lornth, I took up the diversions of my
youth.” Ellindyja eases the outer wooden hoop off, readjusts
the cloth over the inner hoop, and replaces the outer hoop. Then she
picks up the needle.

   “We haven’t replaced
the armsmen we lost.”

   “Nor your father’s
ring. Nor his honor.” Ellindyja’s voice is
acid-edged.

   “The present Lord of Lornth
would appreciate any suggestions you might have, my dear mother, which
do not either bankrupt me or leave our lands open to Lord
Ildyrom.”

   “I have been thinking,
Sillek-about heritages and honor.”

   Lord Sillek purses his lips, then asks,
“What of something besides an attack we cannot
afford.”

   “Well… if one must
resort to more indirect and more merchantlike means, Sillek, my son,
surely there must be some… adventurers… out there
who might want a reward of sorts, perhaps some small parcel of almost
worthless land, and a title… even a pardon… if
necessary.” Ellindyja smiles brightly.

   “Hmmmm…”
Sillek paces to the tower window and back. His fingers touch his
trimmed beard. “Not nearly so expensive as troops. It might
even reduce the banditry-one way or another.”

   “I am more than happy to be of
service, Sillek-as I was for your father. He was a most honorable
man.”

   “I don’t think
we’ll make the offer through a broadsheet, though.”

   “No… that would be
too overtly merchantly. Tell your wizards and your senior armsmen, and
make sure that the traders’ guild knows. That is the way the
better merchants operate.”

   “I do so appreciate your
advice.” Sillek paces back to the window, glancing out into
the slashing rain that has poured off the Westhorns. “Your
advice is always welcome.” He only emphasizes the word
“advice” ever so slightly.

   “I am so glad you do.”

   Sillek does not turn from the window, not
until he forces a smile back upon his lips.

 

 

XXI

 

NYLAN SPLASHED HIS face again, trying to wash away the stone
dust, then took a long swallow of the cold stream water. The water
carried away some of the acridness and dustiness that seeped endlessly
into his nostrils and dried his throat. After another swallow, he
walked back toward the tower. In the foot-packed clay area beyond the
rough stacked stones and the space where Cessya and Huldran alternated
splitting the slates for roofing tiles, Istril and Ryba were working at
blade practice, using the wooden wands that were far safer for
beginners.

   Nylan shivered. His turn would be coming
up. He set down his cup on the nearest pile of black stone and watched
as Saryn and Ryba began to spar. Despite the partial splint that
remained on Saryn’s leg, their wands flickered, faster, and
then even faster, until Nylan’s own heart and lungs seemed to
be racing. Even Istril and Siret had stopped, both silver-haired
marines following the action. As Saryn limped backward and lowered her
wand, the engineer finally caught his breath.

   “Ah, yes,” came a
voice from the sunny side of a pile of cut stones meant for the sixth
level of the tower.

   Nylan leaned over to see Narliat drinking
in the reflected heat from the stone. “Yes?”

   “The she-angels, those two, and
I see why Lord Nessil is dead.”

   “You liked Lord
Nessil?” Nylan tried to keep his voice neutral.

   “He was more honest than most,
but he was terrible when he was angered, and he was angered a lot. That
is not what I meant, Mage. I am a man, too, and I was an
armsman.” Narliat shrugged. “I would not lift a
sword against your she-angels. They would kill me in three strokes,
even the one who is crippled, and I have killed a few men. They were
poor farmers, but they were strong, and I did not want to
die.” Narliat looked back to the practice space where Ryba
had followed Saryn’s lead and set aside her weapon.
“I see the she-angels, and I see the whole world
change.”

   Nylan could feel the sweat oozing from
his forehead as he stood in the sun. He looked down at the local,
wearing a jacket and huddled against the black stone, almost for
warmth. “You’re cold?”

   “Not if I stay here.”
Narliat smiled. “You will make your tower warm, will you
not?”

   Nylan looked toward the stones, looking
more like dark gray in the sunlight than the black they had seemed when
Nylan had cut them from the mountain. “Not that
warm-”

   “A tower-on the Roof of the
World. Only the angels would dare-”

   “Nylan! Since you’re
not cutting or setting stone, let’s get your practice done
now.” Ryba motioned.

   Narliat grinned as the engineer trudged
toward the practice area.

   “Here you go.” Ryba
handed Nylan one of the hand-carved wands. “It’s
not balanced the way I’d like-”

   “I know. We’ve been
through this before.” Nylan lifted the wand. The last few
times he’d actually managed to keep Ryba from tapping him at
will, but he had no illusions about his ability to hold off a master
swordsman or armsman or whatever they were called.

   “Set your feet.”

   Nylan shuffled into position.

   “Not like an old man,
Nylan.”

   Behind them Nylan could see Saryn
motioning to one of the marines.

   “Pay attention,”
snapped Ryba.

   He took a deep breath and tried to focus
on the wand, on Ryba’s face, framed in jet-black hair, and
upon her wand.

   “That’s better.
Ready?” Her wand thrust toward him, and he parried, clumsily,
barely deflecting it.

   “You can do better than
that.” This time her wand was quicker, and Nylan tried to
counter, but the edge of the wood thwacked his shoulder.

   “Ooo…” He
wanted to rub it, but had to dance aside as another slash whistled
toward him, and another… and another.

   Somehow, he managed to slip, block,
deflect, and dance away from most of the captain’s thrusts
and slashes.

   “All right.” Ryba
stepped back. “That’s what you should be facing,
but most of the locals aren’t that good. Most don’t
use the points of their blades, but the edges, and that’s
different.” Nylan shook his head and blinked, then blotted
the sweat from his eyes.

   “They use heavier blades and
try to beat you to a pulp.” Ryba picked up the wider wooden
weapon, the one with a wooden blade that looked more like a narrow
plank than a practice weapon. “You need to work on deflecting
a heavier blade. You can’t meet it directly, not without
losing your own blade or risking having it broken.” She took
the bigger wooden slab in “two hands.
”Ready?“

   “Yes,” said the
engineer, even as he thought, No.

   The first time his light wand met
Ryba’s heavy one, the impact shivered all the way up his arm,
and he staggered back, dancing aside to avoid another counterstroke
before the third one slammed into his thigh.

   “You’d be crippled
for life if that had been a real blade, and if I hadn’t
pulled it at the end. Demon-damn, Nylan, this is serious, and these
things can kill you-and they will.”

   “Fine for you to
say…” he gasped. “You grew up with
them.”

   “Get your blade up. Get it
up.”

   He raised his wand, ignoring the pun, and
waited, then half ducked, half slid the heavier wand.

   “Better. Get it back
up.” Ryba sent another slash at his open side.

   Nylan jumped and slid his wand over hers,
then drove the heavier blade almost into the dirt.

   “Good. Use their momentum
against them. Those crowbars are heavy.”

   But it didn’t seem that heavy
for Ryba because she whipped it back up and around, and Nylan was back
pedal-ing again, and again.

   Still, in between all her hits, he did
manage to drop the heavy wand into the dirt once more and actually
strike Ryba on the shoulder, lightly.

   Finally, she stepped back, “Not
bad. You’ve got a feel for it. Right now, you could probably
hold off the weaker locals. You just need more practice.”
Ryba smiled. “I can see that you’ll be good-very
good-with the blade.” Her smile vanished, replaced
momentarily with a look Nylan could only term somber. “It
won’t be easy.” She looked toward the tower and
shook her head.

   Nylan lowered the wand, his entire body
dripping sweat. Practicing against Ryba was worse than carting heavy
stones up the seemingly endless tower steps, and probably a lot more
futile. He handed the wand back to her.
“Sometimes,” he said, “it feels futile.
I’ll never be as good as you are.”

   She took the wand from him, lowering her
voice. “You don’t have to be. You’re an
engineer, and you’re going to be a wizard or a mage or
whatever they call them.” Ryba paused. “Narliat
already thinks you are.” Then she added, “But you
still need good basic defense skills, and that means more
practice.”

   Nylan wiped his forehead with the back of
his forearm. “Mage?”

   “It has to do with the way you
use the laser. You ought to be able to use this local net or whatever
it is for more than that.” Ryba offered a forced smile.
“I know you can.”

   “Thanks. You’re so
encouraging.”

   “I know what I know.”
She shrugged. “Only sometimes…
unfortunately.” Then she looked toward the two marines
standing back beyond the stacked slate, and pointed at the
silver-haired one. “Llyselle, we don’t have
forever.”

   Nylan trudged back to the stream to wash
his face again before he returned to the business of setting stone in
the walls of the tower. Even the cold water didn’t cool him
much. The yellow sunflowers had begun to wilt, and were being replaced
by small white flowers that hugged the ground between clumps of grass.
Nylan felt like one of the wilted yellow flowers.

   As he passed the practice area, he
glanced at Narliat, sitting in the sun and fingering the splint on his
leg. Nylan laughed to himself as he realized that the armsman was in no
hurry to remove the splint, no hurry at all.

   “She’s
tough,” observed Huldran as Nylan lifted another stone and
began to lug it up the stairs.

   “Very,” grunted the
engineer.

   “So are you.”

   “Not like she is.”

   “You’re just as
tough, ser… in a different way. She couldn’t build
the tower, and we’ll need it, and you aren’t a
fighter. You’re a defender.”

   “Suppose
so…” Nylan continued up toward the top of the
fifth level where he set the stone on the rough planking. Then he
turned and headed back for another stone. Above him Cessya and Weblya
wrestled another of the big timbers into the stone slots.

   He was carrying up the fifth stone, and
almost wishing he were back practicing when Huldran asked,
“Are you about ready for more mortar?”

   “Start mixing it. One more
stone, and we’ll be ready.”

   “You’ve almost got
the north side filled in between the supports.”

   “With luck, we’ll get
the west done, too.” He continued up the stone stairs, almost
tripping on the top step. By the time he returned with the next stone,
Huldran was stirring the mortar components together.

   “This tower will last
forever,” she said. “Maybe.”

   “The captain says it will,
longer than any of our descendants will live here, and that’s
a long time.”

   “She said that?”

   “Yes, ser.”

   Nylan paused before lifting the stone
into place, then said, “Can you bring that tub up when
you’re done?”

   “Not a problem.”

   After reaching the fifth level and
setting down the oblong stone, Nylan took a deep breath, then measured
the six heavy stones, and rearranged them in the order he wanted. What
had Ryba meant by saying that the tower would last forever?

   While he waited for Huldran, he glanced
out toward the southwest, taking in the ice-needle of Freyja, the peak
that glittered in the midday light like a de-energizer beam sensed
through the Winterlance’s net. He swallowed. That was past,
and no reminiscing would bring back that time or universe.

   This was indeed a different place, not
that different on the surface, but more different than most of the
angels realized.

   Still… Ryba’s
comments-both the ones he had heard and those reported by
Huldran-bothered him. Was she getting delusions of grandeur, of some
sort of omnipotence? How could she say she knew what was going to
happen? Was she getting delusions because she had trouble accepting
that she could no longer wield the Winterlance like a mighty blade to
smite the demons?

   “Here’s the mortar,
ser.” Huldran eased the trough onto the planks.

   With the trowel-another laser-cut
adaptation-he began to smooth the next line of the reddish-gray mortar
across the top of the stones already set.

   Clang! Clang! The off-key sounds from the
crude triangle gong resounded across the Roof of the World.

   “Bandits!”

   Nylan eased the fifth heavy stone into
place on the mortar, trying to ignore the whinnying of horses and the
shouted commands.

   “Istril! Take the lower trail!
Try to cut them off. Use the rifle.”

   “Fierral! Run the second
group… with Gerlich…”

   “Form up! Form
up…”

   By the time Nylan finally could let go of
the stone and hasten up the steps to look over the top edges of the
outer wall, he only saw the dust of departing marines, riding off
behind Ryba and the redheaded force leader-and a dozen marines
remaining with blades and sidearms stationed in the rocks on each side
of the top of the rise.

   From the far side of the rise was what
was becoming a packed road down the ridge, Nylan could hear hooves. In
time, he reflected, they should consider putting in marker cairns or
something for winter travel. Or, considering the mud, a real paved road.

   A horse-carrying double-trotted back over
the rise and downhill. Blood streamed down the face of the marine
riding in front.

   “Medic! Medic!”
shouted the other rider.

   “That’s
Denalle!” said Weblya, balancing on the last of the big beams
she and Cessya were setting in the slots, the beams that would form the
floor for the sixth level of the tower and the roof of the fifth.

   “She’s bleeding and
got an arrow through her arm,” added Cessya.

   Nylan watched for a moment before going
back to the stones. The mortar would set before he got the last stone
in place if he didn’t hurry, and there wasn’t
anything he could do that Ayrlyn or one of the combat medics
couldn’t do better.

   He laid out another line of mortar, then
lifted another stone into place, trying to ignore the conversation
between the two marines above.

   “… think he feels he
can’t waste an instant…”

   “You look at that ice up there.
You want to be in one of those thin-shelled landers when the snows are
up over our heads?”

   “But…
Denalle’s hurt…”

   “What can the engineer do that
the medics can’t?”

   “Glad I’m not an
officer… or the captain.”

   “No… I
wouldn’t want to be in her boots. Or the
engineer’s.”

   A whispered remark came next, followed in
turn by a laugh.

   “You’d better not.
You’d really be in trouble.”

    Nylan blushed, but laid another line of
mortar. After he set the sixth stone, he carried the nearly empty tub
of mortar down to the yard space where Huldran was using the sledge and
a wedge Nylan had made to split slate.

   Clunk!

   “Damned stone…
doesn’t always split right,” grunted the stocky
marine.

   “I know. Nothing works quite
the way we want.”

   “You didn’t use all
of it?” asked Huldran.

   “No… can you powder
it or something?”

   “Do that all the time. Just
spread it out on the clean section of stone there-the one with the
dents in it. When it dries, we turn it into powder and add it back
in.”

   A cooler breeze whipped across the meadow
and the tower work area, along with the shadow from a puffy and
fast-moving cloud.

   “Wind feels good,”
commented Huldran.

   “It’ll make it easier
to finish the sides before the day’s over.”

   “You think you can?”
asked the stocky blond.

   “There’s enough stone
cut, and I’m trying to let the generator recharge some more
firin cells before I have to cut more. The captain wants me to forge
more blades, and…” Nylan shrugged.

   “You’re trying to
have enough power to finish the tower and do that?”

   The engineer nodded before returning to
carting stone. He had almost finished getting what he would need before
several horses appeared at the top of the rise and headed down toward
the landers. Over one horse was another body, one clad in olive-black.

   Nylan shook his head. Did every bandit
attack mean another death?

   He watched as the mounted marines rode
straight for the smoldering fire where Kyseen, hampered in combat by
her broken leg, struggled with cooking.

   Nylan still hadn’t done much on
that front, besides designing the kitchen layout and the stoves for the
tower. He hoped that the bandits who had attacked Denalle and the
others hadn’t done too much damage to the brick-making
operation, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

   The engineer recognized the slim,
silver-haired figure of Istril, and he waved.
“Istril!”

   The marine turned her mount toward the
tower, after saying something to the two others and letting them
continue toward the landers.

   Nylan and Huldran waited, then the
engineer gestured. “Who?”

   “Desinada.” Istril
reined up.

   Nylan vaguely remembered the woman;
she’d been among the group that he’d brought down
on his lander. “Sorry.”

   “That sort of thing happens
here. A lot, it seems.”

   “Anything good?”
asked Huldran.

   “One of them had a
purse.” As she turned the horse toward the landers, Istril
lifted the leather pouch and shook it, letting Nylan and the three
marines hear the clank and jingle of mixed coins. “Not that I
wouldn’t have Desinada back for a dozen of these and then
some.”

   “Was anyone else
hurt?” Nylan asked.

   “No. Rienadre ducked behind
your brick oven and winged one of the bastards. I got the other one. We
think one got away, maybe more, but Berlis ran down the winged one. He
gave her some lip, and she ran him through. She gets mean
sometimes.”

   “Yeah…”
muttered Weblya. “Like always.”

   “Thank you.” Nylan
inclined his head to Istril.

   “No problem, ser.”
Istril turned her mount back toward the landers.

   More hoofbeats announced the return of
Ryba and the rest of the marines, along with two more mounts, each with
a bandit’s body slung across the saddle.

   Nylan nodded and bent to lift another
stone. “Back to work.”

   “Don’t you stop for
anything, ser?” asked Cessya.

   “Winter
won’t.” Nylan started up the stairs.

   “One more timber,”
announced Cessya. “Just one more.”

   “Then we got to saw
planks,” pointed out Weblya.

   “Oh, yeah…
it’s my turn on top. You get to be in the pit.”

   “Thanks.”

   The sun had dropped behind the western
peaks before Nylan mortared in the last stone on the fifth level of the
eastern wall. Despite his best resolves, he still had the gaps in the
southern wall left to do. Another day before Cessya and Weblya could
wedge and mortar the big timbers into place and start on placing the
planks. He trudged down, carrying the empty mortar trough.

   “We’ll take that,
ser,” said Weblya.

   “You’re going to
finish it even before it starts to chill, aren’t
you?” asked Cessya.

   “The walls and roof. We might
even be able to use some of the armaglass for windows in a few places,
if the laser holds out.” Nylan coughed, trying to clear the
stone and mortar dust from his throat. “I wanted to get the
stoves and furnace in, too.”

   “A furnace?” The two
looked at each other.

   “Pretty crude. Wood-fired, and
wide heat ducts. A big air return down the stair
pedestal-that’s already in place.”

   “You think big, don’t
you?”

   “I suppose so, but you need
space when there’s snow outside over your head.”
Nylan smiled wryly. “The snow nomads didn’t do all
that winter hunting just for food. If they’d all stayed
around the fires, they’d have killed each other.”
He frowned. “We probably need some timbers inside so that
people can work on skis after it gets cold.”

   The two marines shook their heads as the
engineer checked the laser, still stored in the space under the lower
stairs, and then walked up the hill toward the portable generator with
a single firm cell.

   He checked the readout on the cell being
recharged-over eighty-three percent-and disconnected it, replacing it
with the discharged cell. Then he walked back down to the tower where
the three marines had cleaned the trough and racked their tools.

   “I’m going to wash up
before dinner,” he said.

   “What is dinner?”
asked Huldran.

   “Gerlich brought in two wild
goats, or sheep or something. So we’re going to have a goat
stew. Meat’s too tough for anything else,” answered
Weblya.

   Goat stew, reflected Nylan, probably
meant goat meat, wild onions, and a few other unmentionable or
unidentifiable plant-root supplements, all thickened with some of the
corn flour. “Wonderful.”

   He plodded toward the streamlet that
seemed to narrow each day. They hadn’t really had much rain
in almost two eight-days. That could mean problems for their attempt at
crops.

   After washing, he walked through the
twilight toward the landers and the cook fires, his face cool from the
water and the wind off the ice of the higher peaks.

   The smell of smoke and bread and wild
onions told him that, again, he was among the last to eat.

   “Here, ser.” Kyseen
handed him one of the rough wooden platters heaped with dark stew, a
slab of the flat, fried bread on the side. The edges were only dark,
dark brown this time, not black.

   “Thank you.” Nylan
took it and looked around for one of the sawed-off logs that served as
crude stools.

   “You can sit here,
ser.” Selitra slipped off a log seat.
“I’m finished.”

   Nylan offered a grateful smile to the
lithe marine and sat. “Thank you.” His legs ached;
his shoulders ached; his hands were cracked and dry. And he still
hadn’t finished the fifth level of the tower.

   He tried the bread; it wasn’t
soggy, and it even tasted like bread, but heavy, very heavy. He dipped
it into the brown mass that was stew and chewed. Either he was starving
or the food was improving. Probably both.

   “Do you mind if I join
you?” asked Ryba. “I ate a little
earlier.”

   Nylan nodded. “I was trying to
finish the outer part of the fifth level. We didn’t quite
make it.” He looked north to the dark shape of the tower.

   Ryba’s eyes followed his.
“It’s impressive.”

   Nylan snorted. “I just want it
to be warm and strong.”

   “Just? I recall words about
furnaces, stoves, and water.”

   “Those all go with being secure
and warm.” He dipped the corner of the bread into the stew
and scooped more into his mouth.

   “Those weren’t common
brigands,” Ryba said quietly. “Their blades and
bows were better than those of some of Lord Nessil’s
armsmen.”

   “Bounty hunters?”
Nylan finally asked.

   “I think so. The local lord has
probably offered some sort of reward to get rid of us. We’ll
probably see more bandits or brigands, maybe even a large force by the
end of the summer.”

   “The engineer shook his head.

   “Your tower looks better and
better.” Ryba’s fingers kneaded the tight muscles
in his shoulders.

   Nylan swallowed. “I’m
not sure I like being right in quite that way.”

   “It’s better than
being wrong.”

   He couldn’t argue with that and
looked toward the larger fire, where the marines had gathered around
Ayrlyn.

   “What about a song?”
asked Llyselle.

   “A song?” questioned
the red-haired comm officer, her voice wry.

   “About how you angels routed
the bandits,” suggested Narliat.

   “I don’t know about
routed,” muttered Denalle, her eyes dropping to the dressing
on her right arm. Her left hand strayed toward the second dressing that
covered her forehead, then dropped away. With a wince, she closed her
eyes for a moment.

   “I don’t make up
songs that quickly,” answered Ayrlyn.

   “But you are a minstrel, are
you not?” asked Narliat.

   “This is a verbal
culture,” pointed out Saryn.

   “Too verbal,” growled
Gerlich, glaring at Narliat.

   Nylan could feel himself tensing at
Gerlich’s response and forced himself to let his breath out
slowly.

   “And it has too many
wizards,” added the hunter. “And I don’t
understand why the wizards serve the nobles, the lords, whatever they
are. Those wizards have real powers.”

   “The wizards, they cannot stand
against cold iron,” answered Narliat, “and there
are not a great many wizards.”

   “Still don’t
see…”

   “Oh,
Gerlich…” murmured Ryba, barely loud enough for
Nylan to hear. “Think, for darkness’
sake.”

   Nylan thought also, about cold iron,
wondering why cold iron would prove a problem for a wizard. He could
handle it, and Narliat said he was a wizard.

   “Cold iron?” he
finally asked.

   “Why yes, Mage. The white ones,
they cannot handle cold iron. It’s said that it burns them
terribly.” Narliat shrugged. “I have not seen this,
but I have never seen a white wizard touch iron. Even their daggers are
bronze.”

   Nylan frowned. Why would that be so?
“Thank you.”

   “Now that we have that cleared
up,” Ryba said too brightly, “how about that
song?”

   Ayrlyn picked up the small four-stringed
lutar she had brought down from the Winterlance, just as Ryba had
brought the Sybran blades.

   “How about this one?”
Ayrjyn strummed the strings, adjusted one peg, then strummed again, and
made another adjustment before clearing her throat.

 

   A captain is a funny thing, a spacer with
a net,

   an angel gambling with her death, who
never lost a bet.

   The captain, she took us to those
demon-towers,

   then brought us back right through
Heaven’s showers…

 

   Nylan winced, knowing that the second
verse would be bawdy, and the third even bawdier, then glanced at Ryba,
who was grinning.

   “I’ve heard worse
versions,” she said. “Much worse.”

   Raucous laughter began to rise around the
fire even before Ayrlyn finished the last verse.

   “… and she served
him up well trussed, well done!”

   The laughter died away.

   “An old song? A Sybran
song?” asked Denalle.

   “I don’t know
many,” admitted Ayrlyn, “but there is
one.” The redhead readjusted the lutar, then began.

 

   When the snow drops on the stone,

   When the wind song’s all alone,

   When the ice swords form in twain,

   Sing of the hearths where we’ve
lain.

 

   When the green tips break the snow,

   When the cold streams start to flow,

   When the snow hares turn to black,

   Sing out to call our love back.

 

   When the plains grass whispers gold,

   When the red blooms flower bold,

   When the year’s foals gallop
long.

   Hold to the fall and our song…

 

   Nylan glanced around the fires, then to
the unlit and dark tower looming against the white-streaked peaks, and
back to the marines. More than a handful effaces bore eyes bright with
unshed tears. Some marines blotted damp cheeks when Ayrlyn lowered the
lutar.

   Huldran slowly walked out into the
darkness, and Selitra laid her head on Gerlich’s shoulder,
sobbing silently at the old Sybran horse nomads’ ballad.

   “How about something a bit more
cheerful?” suggested Ryba.

   “I’ll try.”
Ayrlyn readjusted the lutar and began another song.

   When I was single, I looked at the skies.
Now I’ve a consort, I listen to lies, lies about horses that
speak in the darks, lies about cats and theories of quarks…

   “Lies about cats and theories
of quarks…” mused Nylan.
“They’re all lies here, I suppose, at least the
quarks.”

   “You don’t think
quarks are real here?” asked Ryba. Her hand rested lightly on
his forearm, warm in the cool of the mountain evening.

   “Who knows what’s
real, or what reality even is?” he answered.

   “Where we are is
real.”

   And that was a definition as good as any,
Nylan thought, his eyes taking in the almost luminous ice of Freyja,
the needle peak that would dwarf even the most massive tower he would
ever be able to raise.

 

 

XXII

 

“LORD SILLEK LET it be known that he would not be
displeased at whoever reduced the squatters’ holding on the
Roof of the World to rubble and returned the seal ring of his
father.” Terek pulls at his chin as he walks to the tower
window.

   “He’s not taking
another army up there,” answers Hissl, leaning back from the
glass upon the small table.

   “We discussed that earlier. In
his position, would you? This approach will encourage every cutthroat
in Lornth to attack those women.”

   “What good will that
do?” Hissl stands and walks toward the second open window to
let the breeze cool him. “Lord Nessil had score three
armsmen. Not even Skiodra has that, and you saw how he backed down when
he came face-to-face with those devil women. What could a handful of
brigands do?”

   “Lord Sillek has to do
something. The… expedition to the Roof of the World was
rather… embarrassing for Lord Nessil…”
Terek turns back toward Hissl.

   “For his family, you
mean?” asks Hissl. “A corpse is beyond
embarrassment.”

   “Young Lord Sillek wishes to
avenge his father.”

   “And to solidify his
position?”

   “He’s willing to
grant lands and some minor title to whoever succeeds. Something like
Lord of the Ironwoods, no doubt.” Terek laughs.
“There are bound to be some who feel that no women can be
that dangerous.” The chief wizard shrugs. “Besides,
there are not that many of them, and for every one that is killed-that
will make things easier for Lord Sillek.”

   “Let us see,” muses
Hissl ironically. “Lord Nessil lost forty-three armsmen, and
those angels lost three. Say there are two dozen left up on the Roof of
the World… why, that means Lord Sillek, or someone, only
needs to sacrifice around four hundred armsmen.”
Hissl’s voice is soft and smooth. “And that would
be in a battle on an open field. It might take ten times that once
their tower is completed. Do you suppose we could persuade Lord
Ildyrom, Lord Ekleth of Spidlaria, and-”

   “Enough of your
foolishness,” snaps Terek. “The lord’s
stratagem against those angels cannot hurt him.”

   “Do you believe they are really
angels?” asks Hissl.

   “It might be in our interests
to claim that they are-or at least that they are fallen
angels.”

   “Some of them died. Angels
don’t die,” points out Hissl.

   “I believe that was one of the
men.”

   “There were four graves for
their own, and there are still two men walking around. That means three
of the women died.”

   “You are rather tedious,
Hissl,” says Terek.

   “I am attempting to be
accurate.”

   “Then let us call them fallen
angels. That makes them seem more vulnerable.” Terek pauses,
then adds, “And what other… accuracies…
might you add? Helpful accuracies?”

   “Those
thunder-throwers… I do not think that they will be able to
use them for too much longer.”

   “Would you stake your life on
that?”

   “Not at the moment. In a
year… yes.”

   Terek waits. “Go on. Explain.
Don’t make me drag everything out of you.”

   “Only a handful of them are
experienced with blades- the leader, one of the men, and one of the
smaller women. But they are teaching the others. The thunder-throwers
are more effective than blades. So…” Hissl shrugs.
“Why are they spending time learning a less effective weapon?
Also, they have begun to build a tower.”

   “On the Roof of the World? One
winter and they’ll be dead or ready to leave.”

   “I don’t know about
that.” Hissl touches his left cheek with his forefinger, and
he frowns. “We were wearing jackets and cloaks. The wind was
cold. It was still just beyond spring up there. They were in thin
clothes, and they were sweating-all of them.”

   “We will see.” Terek
pulls at his chin again. “We will see.”

   “Yes. That is true.”
Hissl frowns ever so slightly, then smiles.

 

 

XXIII

 

THE GREEN THAT had sprouted from the hand-furrowed rows of two
of the fields rose knee-high in places, waist-high in others, depending
on the plants. The potatoes had been planted in evenly spaced hillocks,
but the green-leaved plants nearly covered all the open ground of the
third field, except along the diagonal line where the water from the
storm eight-days earlier had created a trench, since filled in. Behind
the fields, the landers squatted, droplets of dew beading and then
streaking the metal. Well beyond them were the large cairn and the
seven others, including the latest one for Desinada. Already, dark blue
flowers grew from between the cairn stones to mix with the red
blood-flowers that were fading as the summer passed.

   Nylan turned to the west, where, in the
dawn, the fog seemed to rise off the squared structure of black stone
that dominated the area above the field. The final upper sill of the
wall stones stood more than ten times the height of a woman. Rising out
of the middle of the tower was a square construction of mortared
stones, and at the central point about half the rafters for the roof
were connected. The remaining rafters were lined up in the stone
working yard below the tower.

   Nylan stood in the dawn and studied the
south-facing opening that would be the doorway. While the heavy pins
had been set in the stone lintels, the door had yet to be built, as did
the causeway to it.

   His eyes flicked from the tower base up
the black stones. No great work of art, but it would be big enough and
strong enough to do what would be necessary, unless the locals decided
to drag siege engines through the mountains, or spent seasons building
them and supporting the builders with an army. Neither seemed likely.
Then, he reflected, nothing about the planet was terribly likely.

   At the sense, rather than the sound, of
someone approaching, he turned toward the landers.

   “You don’t sleep
much, do you?” Ryba stopped several paces short of him.

   “Neither do you,
apparently.”

   “Burdens of leadership, curse
of foresight…” Ryba cleared her throat, then
turned toward the tower.

   His eyes followed hers. “Still
a lot to do. Sometimes, more than sometimes, I wonder what else
I’ve forgotten.”

   Her hand touched his shoulder.
“It’s beautiful… the tower, and I can
see, you know, that it will last for generations. Maybe
longer.”

   “You can see that?”

   Ryba shrugged, almost sadly.
“Some things I can see. Like the women who will climb the
rocks searching for Westwind, for hope, for a different life. Like the
men who will chase them, not understanding.”

   “Westwind?”

   “I thought it was a good name.
And that’s what it will be called.” Her laugh was
almost harsh. “So we might as well start now.”

   Nylan turned to her.
“You’re seeing all this?”

   “Nylan… you can bend
metal and power, and Ayrlyn can touch souls with her songs, and her
touch heals small injuries-and Saryn-she glitters when her hands touch
the waters or a blade. Why shouldn’t I, who rode the greatest
neuronets of all, why shouldn’t I have a power beyond the
blades?”

   “Foresight?” he
whispered.

   “At times…
yes… It’s only occasional…
now… but I wonder…” She shook her head.
“You think it’s easy to kill one of your own, to be
as hard as the stones in your tower? To see what might be, if only
you’re strong enough… ? To know that everyone will
die if you’re not…”

   His hands touched hers, and found that
her hands and fingers were cold, trembling, for all that he had to
raise his eyes to meet hers.

 

 

XXIV

 

“THUS CONTINUED THE conflict between order and
chaos, between those who would force order and those who would not, and
between those who followed the blade and those who followed the spirit.

 

   “On the Roof of the World,
those first angels raised crops amid the eternal ice, and builded
walls, and made bricks, and all manner of devisings of the most
miraculous, from the black blades that never dulled to the water that
flowed amidst the ice of winter and the tower that remained yet warm
from a single fire.

 

   “Of the great ones in those
times were, first, Ryba of the twin blades, Nylan of the forge of
order, Gerlich the hunter, Saryn the mighty, and Ayrlyn of the songs
that forged the guards of Westwind…

 

   “For as the skilled and
terrible smith Nylan forged the terrible black blades of Westwind, and
wrenched the very stones from the mountains for the tower called Black,
so did Ryba guide the guards of Westwind, letting no man triumph upon
the Roof of the World.

 

   “For as each lord of the demons
said, ‘I will not suffer those angel women to
survive,’ and as each angel fell, Ryba created yet another
from those who fled the demons, until there were none that could stand
against Tower Black.

 

   “… and so it came to
pass that Ryba was the last of the angels to rule the heavens and the
angel who set forth the Legend for all to heed…”

        
Book of Ayrlyn

        
Section I

        
[Restricted Text]

 

 

XXV

 

SILLEK LOOKS DOWN the lines of horse, then back toward the
west branch of the river, and the ford. Behind him, the fourscore
armsmen shift in their saddles.

   On the next rolling hill is another force
of cavalry, under the white banner bearing a single fir tree-the banner
of Jerans. Sillek studies the Jeranyi force, noting the.varying sizes
of the troopers opposing his. Men and women both bear arms, their
mounts standing, waiting, in the knee-high grass.

   “Barbaric,” he
mutters.

   “The women?” asks
Koric. The mustached and slightly stoop-shouldered captain spits out
onto the grass. “Sometimes they’re nastier than the
men. Rather fight the Suthyans any day.”

   “Do you see Ildyrom over
there?”

   “He’s the one in the
green jacket. Verintkya’s the big blond bitch next to him.
She uses a mace sometimes, they say. Split your head with a smile, she
would.”

   Sillek turns in the saddle.
“Master Terek.”

   “Yes, Your Grace?”
The chief wizard eases his mount closer to the Lord of Lornth.

   “Will your firebolts reach the
Jeranyi?”

   “From here, ser? It’s
a long pull…” Terek’s ungloved hand
brushes his white hair. Behind him Hissl and Jissek watch Sillek
intently.

   “Yes or no?”

    “Yes, ser.” Terek
holds up a hand. “But we can’t send so many. It
takes more energy to send bolts that far.”

   “Can you tell if Ildyrom has
any archers there?”

   Terek gestures to Hissl.

   “There are a couple of troopers
with the short curved bows, but no longbows, ser.”

   “So they can’t quite
reach us with arrows…” Sillek pauses, then turns
to Terek. “Go ahead, Chief Wizard. Fry as many as you
can.”

   Beside Sillek, Koric clears his throat.
“Ser… begging your pardon.”

   Terek waits, as do Hissl and Jissek.

   “Yes, Captain?”
Sillek’s voice is smooth-and cold.

   “Using firebolts… I
mean… what if they’ve got wizards?”

   “Is that your real concern,
Captain, or are you clinging to my father’s outdated sense of
nobility?”

   “Ser…”
Koric drew himself up in the saddle.

   “Koric…
I’m not interested in battlefield tales or boasts.
I’ve got a bunch of bitch-women at my back with
thunder-throwers. I’ve got Ildyrom and Verintkya trying to
take over the good grasslands between the South Branch and the West
Fork, and the Suthyans are raising the port tariffs in Rulyarth. Now,
if I can get rid of Ildyrom without losing anyone… so much
the better.”

   “Next time, they’ll
bring wizards,” said Koric.

   “There aren’t many,
if any, as good as ours.” Sillek turns to Terek.
“Is that not correct, Master Wizard Terek?”

   “I believe so, ser.”

   “Good. Prove it.”

   Koric frowns as Terek concentrates, then
points.

   Whhhhssttt! With a whistling, screaming
hiss, a firebolt arcs from Terek’s fingers out over the
valley between the two hills and falls across two Jeranyi troopers.

   The twin screams shriek across the gently
waving grasslands, and greasy smoke billows from the other hillside. A
riderless horse rears into the midday sky, then lets forth a screaming
whinny before bolting down the hillside in the general direction of
Berlitos, the forest city of Jerans that lies more than four days of
hard riding to the west.

   The remaining Jeranyi horse hold, though
the troopers on them seem to shift in their saddles before several
arrows fly eastward. The shafts drop harmlessly in the tall grass well
below the hilltop where the forces of Lornth wait.

   “Another!” commands
Sillek.

   Terek frowns, but concentrates. A second
firebolt arcs over the valley and toward Ildyrom.

   The bolt splashes across the chest of a
roan who rears, screaming, so suddenly that the rider is flung backward
and falls into a crumpled heap. More greasy smoke rises as the fatally
wounded horse falls and rolls, then quivers, in the damp grasses. A
trooper dismounts, checks the still figure in the grass. Shortly, two
Jeranyi troopers quickly put the body on a packhorse.

   Then the fir-tree banner jerks, and then
the Jeranyi turn and ride westward, disappearing behind the hilltop,
leaving three piles of smoldering ash.

   As Sillek watches, Terek takes a deep
breath, and Hissl, observing the pallor on Terek’s face, nods
to himself.

   “Now what, ser?” asks
Koric.

   “We follow them,
discreetly.”

   “We could ride ‘em
down, maybe get rid of them.”

   Sillek holds in a deep breath, purses his
lips, then finally responds. “How many armsmen did we
lose?”

   “Why, none, ser.”

   “How many did they
lose?”

   “Three.”

   Sillek nods. “And what happens
if we do this every time they stop, until we chase them back to their
earthen fort?”

   “It won’t get rid of
their fort.”

   “No… but if we can
kill five or ten troopers every time we meet and not lose anyone-how
long before Lord Ildyrom is going to think about abandoning that fort?
We can do the same to supply forces, you know?”

   “He’ll think of
something, ser.”

   “He probably will, and
we’ll have to think of something better.” Sillek
motions, and the purple banners flutter in the light wind as the
Lornian forces follow those of Jerans. “Preferably before he
does.”

 

 

XXVI

 

THE WHITE-YELLOW sun beat down across the Roof of the World,
and Nylan wiped his forehead, glancing across the fields. The melting
ice from the mountains to the south provided some water, but the two
small streams that wound out of the rocks and meandered across the
meadow area before they joined seemed to shrink daily. The meadow area
around the fields now bore no flowers, only grass and low bushes,
except for the stony patches where nothing grew.

   Nylan’s eyes followed the
general path of the stream to the cut on the north end of the eastern
plateau where the stream plunged over the edge, dropping in a thin line
of silver to the creek bed on which, far below, lay the gorge that
contained Nylan’s fledgling brick-making operation. He
hadn’t tried the clay piping yet. The bricks were proving
difficult enough. He took a deep breath. With the laser, he could work
what seemed miracles, so long as the firin cells lasted, and yet trying
to get the consistency and texture of a demon-damned low-tech
brick…

   With a shake of his head, Nylan turned,
and as he walked back from the space in the rocks, feeling relieved,
his eyes flicked over the tower. The outer walls were complete, and so
were most of the inner walls. Cessya, Huldran, and Weblya had the
roofing timbers in place, and the three of them were working on the
cross-stringers, while he got the tiles ready.

   At the southern base of the tower were
the stacks of slate tiles that had slowly been split by Huldran,
Cessya, and Weblya with the sledge from Skiodra and the wedges he had
made with the laser-just waiting to be drilled so that the tower could
be roofed.

   He swallowed.

   He’d never made provisions for
waste disposal in the tower.

   “Shit…” he
mumbled. How could he have overlooked that? It didn’t seem
all that bad now, in the warmth of summer, but with ice and snow deeper
than a man or woman, or deeper than that, some provisions definitely
needed to be thought out-and he hadn’t.

   He walked toward the work yard and
studied the tower again.

   He could convert one of the fourth-level
casements into a small facility, with an exterior drop shaft into a
cistern-type enclosure with a drain for liquids. Maybe he could add
another on the fifth level. But some sort of bathhouse or the like
would have to be separate, and for safety’s sake, have a
separate water line-plus a covered and walled passage that could be
blocked off in cases of attack, if necessary. Some part of the
bathhouse probably ought to have laundry tubs, as well.

   How… how could he have
overlooked those needs, and what else had he overlooked? Then again,
the difficulty of covering the piping and the heights had forced him to
put the tower’s cistern on the lower level.

   Back in the yard, he rechecked the power
levels on the block of firin cells-down to thirty percent-mentally
calculating and deciding he might, might, make it through the day
before replacing the block. He’d also planned to use the
laser to craft another blade or two-Ryba was insisting that he needed
to provide more weapons before the laser gave out. In between times,
he’d already managed to forge nearly a dozen of the black
blades that all the marines clamored for. After scratching the flaking
and itching sunburned skin on his forearm, he inspected the
laser’s powerhead with both eyes and his senses, still trying
every trick he could think of to eke out the best use of the stored
power that he was running through faster than the emergency generator
would ever be able to recharge-assuming the laser even outlasted . the
generator.

   Nylan finally eased the laser on and
focused the beam, as much now with his mind as with the manual
controls, to drill the necessary holes in the slate roofing tiles that
Stentana would stack as he finished each.

   The barrel of heavy spike nails that
Ayrlyn had charmed out of a traveling trader two days toward the plains
of Gallos was definitely going to be a help. Making nails was not
something he even wanted to try with a laser, assuming he could even
figure out how. The transaction, according to Narliat, had taken not
only Ayrlyn’s charm, but more than a gold in coin-and a gold
was worth plenty in this culture- something like a season’s
work for a laborer-the looming presence of armed marines, and
Narliat’s guile. She’d also come up with another
pair of heavy hammers and a huge chisel, plus, of course, some food.
Nylan had appreciated it all, especially the cask of dried fruit from
someplace called Kyphros.

   He was drilling three holes in each
slate, after having tested the idea by spiking several to sections of
stringers that had proved flawed.

   Once he got back into the rhythm of the
work, Nylan moved through the big slates quickly, and that was a
relief, because he felt everything he could do to stretch more life
from the laser would make everyone’s life easier.

   In time, his arms began to ache, as they
always did after using the laser, and his vision began to blur.

   Clang! Clang! Clang! Someone banged the
alarm triangle.

   “Bandits!” yelled
another voice, and before Nylan could finish the hole he was drilling
and cut the. power flow and look away from the laser, Ryba and a
handful of marines were galloping across the meadow and up the ridge.

   “I thought we got the bandits
earlier,” said Cessya, wrestling a rough-cut stringer toward
the makeshift earthen ramp that led to the tower door.

   “This is probably another
group,” pointed out Nylan, his eyes on the additional marines
taking up positions on the rocky heights that controlled the approach
to the tower and the meadow and fields. He took a deep swallow from the
cup and munched some of the stale flat bread, feeling guilty as he did,
but knowing that he couldn’t do what he did without the
additional nourishment.

   “Take a break,
Stentana,” he suggested. “It’ll be a
little bit before I can fire it up again.”

   “Power, ser?”

   “Sort of.” He smiled
wryly, not wanting to explain that he was the underpowered part of the
equipment. He walked up the ramp and into the shade of the second level
of the tower, where he sat on the next-to-the-bottom step.

   The triangle sounded again, and Nylan
heaved himself up off the step and back out into the sunlight.

   Three riders guided their mounts down
toward the landers, following the trail past the tower yard. On the
fourth mount, riderless, a body was slung across the saddle, a body in
the black olive drab of a marine.

   “Who?” asked Huldran
as Istril led the horse past the tower yard.

   Nylan looked at the laser and then toward
Istril and the dead marine, but the body was facedown.

   “Frelita.”

   Nylan didn’t know the marine by
name, since he hadn’t learned them all, but he’d
probably recognize her face-or recognize when she wasn’t
there at dinner. For a time, the tower crew watched the horses and
their riders.

   “We can’t help them
by looking,” Nylan finally said.

   “I’ll be glad when
the tower’s finished,” added Huldran.

   Weblya laughed once. “Then
we’ll have to build a real ramp, and some stables.
There’s a lot to do.”

   “How about a bathhouse with
showers?” suggested Nylan. “And a place to do
laundry?”

   “Showers with ice-cold water?
No, thank you,” answered Stentana.

   “He’s working on a
furnace,” said Huldran. “Maybe he can give us a
hot-water heater.”

   Nylan groaned.

   Huldran grinned. “I can ask,
ser.”

   “Let’s worry about
getting a solid roof on the tower first.”

   “Yes, ser.” The blond
squared her shoulders.

   Nylan finished the last of the roof
slates before the sun even touched the western peaks, with enough
time-and power left-for him to shape two more of the black blades,
although they couldn’t be used, not easily, until some of the
hides of the big cats killed by Gerlich were tanned-or until they got
some kind of leather to wrap the hilts.

   After that, Nylan stowed the laser cells
back in the space under the tower stairs. Then he trudged to the upper
stream and washed up as well as he could before making his way toward
the cook fires.

   Three repeated rings on the triangle
called all but the sentries around the fires.

   Ryba stood on one of the lengths of logs,
and studied the group, waiting for silence. Her face was grim.
“Frelita’s dead. It didn’t have to
happen, but she really wasn’t paying attention.”

   “… poor
woman…”

   “… should have
watched closer…”

   “You idiots!” snapped
Ryba, her voice cold as a winter gale, cutting off the low murmurs.
“Did you think that after one round of bandits,
they’d all go away? We can’t afford to lose one of
you every time some idiot brigand shows up. Do you want to be the next
one skewered by one of those arrows? There’s no such thing as
one band of brigands in a place like this. You kill one bunch, and more
show up. And life is so frigging hard here that they don’t
care much if they die, so long as they have some fun along the way. Fun
is food, wine, beer, and women-and they don’t care how they
get their women.”

   Saryn fingered the sharp edge of her
blade, one of the better ones Nylan had done, and one of the matching
pair that the former second pilot wore. “… I
do…”

   Her words were as clear as if she had
been standing beside Nylan, and he frowned. How had he heard Saryn so
clearly?

   Ayrlyn, halfway between Nylan and Saryn,
shook her head, then glanced at the engineer, raising her eyebrows. He
shrugged back, trying not to cough as the smoke from the cook fire
twisted toward him.

   Perhaps it wouldn’t be too long
before Rienadre and Denalle had fired enough bricks to start building
the big stove and the furnace in the lower level of the tower. Maybe
completing the tower would help with some of the security. He pursed
his lips. Who was he kidding? Crops had to be tended. Someone had to
hunt. Others had to keep watch. The tower would be great against the
winter, and at night-but not that much help in the warm days, except as
a higher vantage point.

   “Women are slaves here-outside
of Westwind. And don’t you forget it. There are few men off
the Roof of the World who wouldn’t want to kill you, humble
you, rape you-or all three. We’re the evil angels to a lot of
these people. Now we can change that, and we’re going to-but
we can’t do it if you get yourselves killed.” A
cast of sadness crossed the captain’s face.
“I’m sorry about Frelita. I wish it
hadn’t happened. And I’m still sorry about
Desinada. But let’s not let it happen again.” She
stepped down and walked through the marines toward Nylan.

   He touched her forearm, and she looked at
him, then nodded toward the tower. So they walked back up the gentle
slope until the black stones loomed over them.

   “It always takes death or force
to get people’s attention. And one death sometimes
doesn’t even do it,” Ryba began.
“I’ve got to act like some ancient dictator just to
get people to follow common sense.”

   “Not all of us,”
suggested Nylan.

   “Thank the darkness.”
Ryba sighed. “But they complain about sawing planks, cleaning
saw blades, or making bricks. Don’t they?”

   “Sometimes.”

   “And what do you tell
them?”

   “I ask them if they want to
spend the winter with a thin layer of metal between them and snow twice
their height, eating frozen food and breaking their teeth-if
they’ve got the strength to eat.” Nylan paused.
“Selling the tower’s easy. They can see it.
It’s hard to sell alertness, or general preparedness, or
anything people can’t touch.”

   Ryba nodded.
“Sometimes… sometimes, I get so tired.”

   Nylan put his arms around her.

   She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed.
“Have to remember to take comfort when I can.”

   “That’s all we can
do.”

   After a time, they separated and walked
slowly back toward the cook fires and a late supper. Overhead, the cold
stars blinked out and shone down on the Roof of the World, each as cold
as the ice that coated Freyja, as cold as the latest cairn in the
southwestern corner of the Roof of the World, where there were getting
to be too many cairns, too quickly.

 

 

XXVII

 

THE LOW GRAY clouds that had brought the long-overdue
afternoon rain scud eastward and toward the mighty Westhorns as Sillek
peers on his knees through both the twilight and the chest-high, damp
grasses. Less than a thousand cubits away, across a slight depression,
lie the earthen ramparts that sit on the last raised ground controlling
the approach to the ford-and the road to Clynya. Behind the ramparts
are several tents, and more than a handful of long rough-planked
buildings with sodded roofs. The air smells of damp grass, soil, and
woodsmoke.

   “Can you set those buildings on
fire, Master Mage?” he asks Terek.

   “This grass is damp,
ser.”

   “The buildings?”
hisses Sillek.

   “Yes, ser, but I’d
have to get closer, much closer. They’ve cut away all the
grass-”

   “Burned it, I think,”
corrects Sillek. “You can see in the dark, can’t
you? Mages are supposed to be able to do that.”

   “In the dark? You want us to do
this in the dark?”

   “As I told Koric, I’m
not a slave to an outmoded code of honor, Master Chief Wizard. That
bastard Ildyrom disregarded honor and traditional boundaries when he
seized the grasslands west of Clynya and built this fort to hold them.
Honor says I should send my armsmen against a bunch of mongrel scum to
have them killed? Frig honor. I intend to get the grasslands back
without killing my men.”

   Terek shifts his weight from one knee to
the other in the high damp grass, all too aware he does not wear the
hip-length boots that Sillek does.

   “When it gets dark, Koric and a
handful of the best will escort you and the two other wizards down as
far as you need to go. I want everything in that fort to
burn-everything.”

   “But they’ll
flee.”

   “Of course.” Sillek
smiles. “I’ve thought of that, too. Now,
let’s get back and get ready.” He glances to the
darkening western horizon, then back to the thin lines of smoke coming
up from the wooden huts behind the earthen walls.

   Terek shivers, but follows the lord as
the two creep back through the grasses, hoping that the sentries in the
fort can see nothing but grass waving in the evening breeze.
“… all this sneaking…” Terek
mumbles to himself. “Do you want to ride up front in a charge
to take that fort, Master Wizard?” asks Sillek, still easing
through the damp grasses in a crouch, grasses that bend and then spray
Terek with the rain that has coated them. Terek wipes his forehead.
“No, ser.”

   “Then stop complaining.
I’m a lot more interested in winning than in being a dead
hero, and, from what I’ve seen, so are you.”

   When they reach the low hill that
shelters the Lornian forces, Sillek straightens and massages his back.

   Koric waits and listens as Lord Sillek
explains.

   “… won’t
be too much longer before it’s dark enough for you to start,
Koric.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   Sillek touches his arm and lowers his
voice. “Who else can I trust to ensure these…
wizards… do as they’re supposed to? I
can’t spare a score of horse or the archers.”

   “I understand, ser.
I’ll do my duty.”

   Both Sillek and Koric understand the
words that Koric does not speak. But I don’t have to like it.

   “I know,” Sillek
says. “Just remember. It’s the results that
count.” He studies the almost-dark sky and the stars that
have appeared. “You’d better get started.”

   Koric nods.

   Sillek wipes what moisture he can from
his leathers, and boots, before mounting and beginning his instructions
to the horse troopers.

   As the skies continue to clear, and the
white firepoints of the stars blink across the grasslands, Koric leads
the three wizards through the grass. Watch fires glimmer at the four
corners of the fort, spilling light into the darkness.

   Another group from Lornth circles behind
the wizards, heading for the ford in the West Fork. The dozen men bear
longbows and filled quivers.

   Farther from the Jeranyi redoubt,
sheltered by the slope of the land and the, chest-high grass, Lord
Sillek and his horse wait, then he nods, and, almost silently, the
troopers begin their roundabout ride to the south side of the road that
leads from the ford to the fort.

   The grass bends and whispers, showering
Hissl with droplets. He wipes his face and follows, at a crouch, Koric
and the chief wizard.

   “Keep down,” hisses
Koric. “You mages get us discovered, and you’ll
spend the next season in cold iron, if the Jeranyi don’t
catch us, and do it first.”

   Hissl takes a deep breath and wipes more
water out of his eyes. Jissek just puffs along after Terek. Behind them
follow a half squad of armed troopers, also creeping through the damp
grass and darkness.

   “Is this close
enough?” asks Koric as he pauses and glances toward the watch
fires that are little more than a hundred cubits away, their flames
flickering in the light but steady wind out of the west that brings
with it the smell of wood fires, probably from wood ferried downstream
from the headwaters of the West Fork. Mixed with the wood smoke is the
odor of cooking grease.

   Hissl licks his lips, trying to ignore
the growling in his guts.

   “Close enough,”
admits Terek, “even for Jissek.”

   “You start when
you’re ready,” orders Koric. “The others
will watch for the fires.”

   “The center building is mostly
wood,” offers Hissl in a low voice.

   “Thank you, Master
Hissl,” responds Terek.

   “Stop it, you two,”
mumbles Jissek. “Let’s get on with it.”

   “You also, Master
Jissek,” hisses Terek. “I’ll do the
first, then Hissl, and then you, Jissek. Take your time, and hit
something.”

   Whhsttt!

   The first firebolt arcs out of the grass
and drops into the fort- slamming into the side of a building where
flames lick at the rough-dressed log wall.

   Clang! Clang!

   The Jeranyi warning bell echoes through
the fort.

   More fireballs arc out of the darkness
and fall across the buildings within the earthen walls.

   The bell clamors more, then falls silent
as the sound of voices and muffled orders fill the once-still evening.

   “… mount up and fall
in!”

   “Archers!… Where are
the frigging archers?”

   “Fire! Water for the cook hall!
Fire!”

   Three additional fireballs, the first the
largest, drop in succession into the fort.

  
“Aeeeeüü!” A scream tells that at
least one has struck more than wood.

   The crackling of flames joins the chorus
of orders and the whuffing and whinnying of hastily saddled mounts. The
night air lightens with the growing flames from the buildings in the
fort, with burning canvas, and the smell of smoke thickens as it drifts
toward the wizards.

   Another round of fireballs flares
eastward. After his fourth firebolt, Jissek drops to his knees and
holds his head. Terek snorts and flings another ball of fire toward the
fort, and so does Hissl, who ignores the sweat beading on his forehead
despite the cool night wind.

   The flames continue to build, and the
cool wind becomes warm, then hot, and the Jeranyi redoubt blazes with
the light of a second sun.

   Terek grunts as he lets go a last
firebolt. “Can’t do much more here.”

   “All right. Let’s
move back. Keep low until we’re out of the light.”

   As all three wizards stumble after the
surefooted Koric, the fort’s gates open, and the Jeranyi
horse ride quickly down the road toward the ford, in rough ranks,
blades glittering in the light of dozens of fires.

   The whirring of arrows, like soft-winged
birds, is lost in the clatter and thump of hooves, in the low-voiced
orders, and the crackling of the fire. The bodies slumping in saddles
are not.

   “Charge the river!”
orders a strong tenor voice.

   “The river!” adds a
second, deeper voice.

   The column straightens, and the Jeranyi
forces gallop downhill, hooves thudding on the damp-packed clay of the
road, before splashing through the water and heading into the darkness
that leads to Jerans.

   More soft-winged arrows fly out of the
darkness into the backlighted horse troopers, and more bodies fall from
saddles. Some few wounded riders are fortunate enough and strong enough
to hang on and keep riding into the safety of the western darkness.

   Shortly, the road is empty, except for
more than two dozen bodies and two riderless horses.

   Behind the empty road, the pillar of fire
that had been a Jeranyi outpost slowly subsides, consuming as it does
all that can burn, and filling Clynya, kays downwind, and the barracks
there, with the odor of smoke and burned meat.

   Later, much later, in the small upper
room of the barracks, Sillek smiles. “That should give
Ildyrom something to think about.”

   Koric nods slowly. “This time.
What if he rebuilds?”

   “This time, the wizards will
watch. One of them will stay here with a detachment.”

   The three wizards exchange glances.

   Koric nods slowly. “Might
I?”

   “If that would please you,
Captain.” Sillek turns to Terek. “I would
appreciate it if Master Hissl might serve my captain Koric
here.”

   “I am most certain that Master
Hissl would be pleased,” answers Terek.

   “Indeed, I would be pleased,
Your Grace,” responds Hissl. His voice is low, only a shade
more animated than if it were absolutely flat.

   In the corner, Jissek wipes his forehead.

 

 

XXVIII

 

HIGH HAZY CLOUDS hovered above Freyja, moving slowly eastward,
and behind them, to the west, lurked a hint of darkness.

   Nylan cleared his throat and checked over
his equipment, from the worn gauntlets and the scratched goggles never
designed for such intensive use down to the crude trough of water and
hydraulic fluid.

   He ran his fingers over the blade he was
using as a model once more before picking up another of the endurasteel
braces from the landers. His senses, now more practiced, studied the
metal, checking the imperfections hidden within.

   With a deep breath, he pulled on the
goggles and the gauntlets and touched the power-up studs on the firin
cell bank. After picking up the heavy brace, he readjusted and pulsed
the laser, slowly cutting along the grain of the metal. He’d
finally gotten used to guiding a laser by feel, and he even
didn’t try to analyze what he was doing too deeply.

   When he had completed the rough cut, he
released the power stud and checked the cut and the metal-still rough,
still partly disordered. Next came spreading the beam for a wider heat
flow and to get the heat and power to guide the semifinished shape of
the blade.

   After his round of shaping, he
concentrated on the hand guards and tang. As he cut and melted the
metal, he eased the metal into shape and order, trying not to remember
how he once had smoothed power fluxes through the
Winter-lance’s neuronet.

   Almost as an afterthought, he tried to
bind that… darkness… that accompanied the local
net into the metal. He’d gotten better. Not only did the
blade glow with a lambent darkness, but it felt more right for him.
He’d keep this blade and pass the one he had been using along.

   By the time he’d completed and
tempered the blade, the power loss was only about a half percent from
the cells- but he was exhausted as he slumped onto one of the extra
wall stones and gulped down the water from the battered and scratched
gray plastic cup. Perhaps the extra energy required by the darkness he
had put in the metal?

   He licked his dry lips and looked across
the tower yard. Beyond the extra wall stones were the thicker slate
chunks that would be used for flooring-at least in the lowest tower
level and in the great hall.

   The wind had picked up, its cooling
welcome as it ruffled his unevenly cut short hair. Jaseen had tried,
but the aesthetic effect left something to be desired. Not that he
cared that much-or did he?

   To avoid that speculation, Nylan glanced
up beyond Freyja, noting that the sky was darkening, becoming almost
black upon the mountains that formed the horizon.

   “Frig…
he’s here early… and another miracle
blade,” mumbled Weindre to Huldran as the two entered the
area outside the tower that was coming to be known as the yard.
“Don’t complain. Your life just might rest on those
blades. How many rounds are left in your little
slug-thrower?” Huldran grinned at Nylan.

   The engineer offered a quick smile in
return, then glanced at the roof, where three sides were complete, with
the black-gray slate tiles spiked in place. Only the east side remained
unfinished, with three lines of tile in place along the bottom
stringers.

   They’d used mortar to seal the
ridges, although Nylan knew something more plastic, like tar or pitch,
would have been far better-but where could they find that?

   “I know. I know,”
answered Weindre as she stopped in the yard. “But I feel so
awkward with a piece of sharp metal in my hands.”

   “Better learn to get
comfortable with it,” suggested the stocky blond marine.
“Otherwise you’ll end up like Desinada or
Frelita.”

   “You want us like the captain
or the second, or Istril? They’re scary.” Weindre
paused. “Even the engineer-pardon, ser-he’s pretty
good, and he doesn’t practice that much.”

   A dull rumbling echoed off the western
peaks, followed by another round of thunder. Three quarters of the sky
was black, but the sun still shone in the east.

   He forced himself up.
“I’ll need some help getting all this into the
space in the center of the tower.”

   “Ser?” Another roll
of thunder pounded out of the mountains.

   “This is going to be a
demon-damned storm. Let’s go! Now!”

   “Yes, ser.” Huldran
grabbed Weindre by the arm, and the two marines unfolded the carry-arms
for the firin cell racks.

   Nylan began gathering tools and loose
objects as the wind began to tear around him.

   Overhead, the clouds gathered into a dark
mass almost as black as deep space. The wind had risen to a whistling
shriek by the time the three had stowed all the equipment, as well as
the just-finished black blade, back in the tower, and Nylan had secured
the heavy door.

   “Now what?” shouted
Huldran above the wind.

   The lightning cracked across the sky, the
white-yellow bolt reflecting off the ice of Freyja, the rumbling
echoing back and forth between the high peaks after each bolt.

   “Just stay here in the lower
level of the tower,” suggested Nylan.
“We’ll see how well we built.”

   Weindre looked at the two.

   “I’d rather be here
than in one of those flimsy landers,” snapped Huldran.

   . Nylan sat on one of the steps, his eyes
resting on the low lines of brick that represented the base of the
stove. The furnace was waiting on the results of his efforts in firing
clay piping.

   Weindre glanced up the stairs, then
followed Huldran over to a side wall. Unlike Nylan, neither sat-they
just stood listening to the storm.

   His eyes closed as he leaned back against
the stones, Nylan let his senses follow the patterns of the storm. Even
without straining, he could feel the interplay of chaos and order, like
the power flows that occurred when the angels’ de-energizers
fought with the mirror towers of the demons. He doubted he’d
sense that type of battle again, not with technology, anyway.

   Like ice knives, the rain slashed down,
heavy droplets dashing against the stone walls of the tower, then
running in rivulets downward.

   Clack! Clack!

   Fist-sized hailstones banged off the
stones of the tower walls.

   A small trickle of water, blown through
the unfinished main doorway, began to drop from one side of the
stairwell above, down onto the packed clay of the tower’s
lowest level. Before long, the drops became a stream.

   The wind continued to howl, and Nylan
wished that he’d insisted that the big front door be finished
and hung. He still hadn’t done much more on the
waste-disposal problem than rework the two casements.

   The water had formed a large puddle,
almost a small pond in the lowest part of the tower basement, that grew
as Nylan watched.

   Almost as suddenly as the storm had
begun, the clacking of the hailstones died away, and the
wind’s whistling dropped off.

   Nylan stood and eased his way up the
steps and onto the water-soaked timbers and stone subflooring of the
tower’s entry level. From the doorless front portal, he
looked out across the Roof of the World. The lower corners of the
larger field were little more than knee-deep gullies, leading into a
man-deep canyon that ran right off the edge of the plateau. Even in the
middle of the northernmost fields, some of the small potato nodules
were half-exposed, hanging out over ditches. Only the stone cairns-one
large and eight smaller ones-looked untouched. That figured.

   Nylan shrugged and walked out into the
drizzle, then looked back at the tower. The walls seemed solid, and the
foundations untouched, although the open casements on the upper levels
were dark with moisture. His eyes went higher. From what he could tell,
only the lower line of slate tiles on the east side had been damaged,
and about half, a good twenty, were either askew or missing.

   Nylan hoped the laser lasted longer,
because trying to hand bore or punch those slates would create a lot of
broken tiles-and more than a little wasted effort for Weblya, Huldran,
and Cessya.

   “Shit!”
Huldran’s voice was bitter.

   “That’s only a
handful of roof tiles,” Nylan pointed out, turning back
toward the landers and trying to ignore a sense of loss as he plodded
through ankle-deep water and mud. He didn’t know what he
should-or could-do, but he needed to find out the rest of the damage.

   “Yes, ser, but we
didn’t need any of this.” Huldran walked at his
elbow..

   “Probably not. We should have
expected it, though. I imagine fall, winter, and spring are all this
violent, if not worse.”

   “Hate this place.”

   “You’d rather be down
on the plains, melting into a pile of goo?”

   “The whole friggin‘
planet, ser.”

   “None of us planned this. We do
what we can.” And hope that it’s enough and that we
didn’t do anything too stupid, he added to himself.
“We’ll need to run wider diversion ditches around
the field to stop this sort of thing.”

   Heaps of hail lay strewn everywhere
across the meadow, and the drizzle that kept falling was tinged with
ice flakes. Ryba looked up from a prone figure where she and Jaseen,
the combat medtech, struggled. “We need dressings, Nylan.
Gerlich’s out hunting, and he knew the storage plan by heart.
Try lander three. Huldran, can you take charge of the diversion in the
fields so that we don’t lose any more crops?”

   “Yes, ser.” The blond
marine was moving as she spoke. “Will do.” As Nylan
turned to go for the medsupplies, he asked, “What
happened?”

   “One of those skinny little
trees with the gray leaves- the storm ripped off a top branch. Kadran
didn’t even see it coming in the wind and rain. Went through
her shoulder like a set of barbed arrows.”

   Nylan winced, but stepped up his pace. He
was halfway through the second bin in lander three when Ayrlyn joined
him and started at the other end of the bins.

   Nylan ran through an emergency medical
kit. “There are a couple of modules missing here.”

   “Don’t bother with
that, Nylan.” Ayrlyn frowned. “Great help here.
This one says it’s the emergency surgery section, and
here’s the section for emergency childbirth.
Someone’s been into it, but it’s been
resealed.”

   “Be a while before we need
that.” Nylan glanced through the lander door, but did not see
the all-too-visibly-pregnant Ellysia. “How
Gerlich…” He turned back and discarded the single
remaining bone-splint kit.

   “There are some stupid ones
left. Every generation there always are. Not many, but she’d
never considered birth control. Now, what about this-standard first
aid-”

   “That’s it. We need
to run that over to Jaseen.”

   “I’ll do that. See if
you can find any more. We might need them. Who knows what happened to
those who were caught out in the open?” Ayrlyn grasped the
sealed package and left while Nylan carefully worked through the
dwindling medical supplies, before finding another sealed package of
surgical dressings. He decided against taking them, but set the package
in the now-empty first bin before leaving the lander.

   In the short time he’d been in
the lander, Ryba had managed to start the process of restoring order.
Kyseen was rebuilding the cook fire, and straightening up that area,
while Huldran had managed to divert the main flow of water from the
bean field and had a crew working on the potatoes.

   Ryba was checking over the mounts, and
Istril headed off with two others to see about rounding up two mounts
that had left the makeshift corral.

   Everything, except the tower, it seemed,
was makeshift, and he still didn’t have the demon-damned
thing finished- or even the plans worked out for the bathhouse and
laundry addition and the jakes in the tower.

   Slowly he walked back to the tower, where
the lower level lay filled with puddles, one of them almost a half
cubit deep. Drains. He had forgotten drains-another mistake to be
rectified.

   When he reached the tower yard, and the
slowly vanishing puddles, he turned and looked up, studying the rain,
now only falling steadily in a form somewhere between a fine mist and a
heavy drizzle. The piles of white hailstones, like bleached bones,
stood out on the green of the meadow.

   Then he walked up into the tower and
started up the stairs to check on the damage to the east roof.

   As he climbed, he wondered about his
brick-making and the crude oven, then shook his head. That had been low
tech, and if the rains had carried it away, he would find a way to
rebuild it.

 

 

XXIX

 

HISSL STARES INTO the glass, looking at the waving stalks of
grass, and at the burned fort, with the few wisps of smoke still
threading into the sky. Concentrating again, he waits for the image to
re-form, and it does, showing an empty road that would lead to
Berlitos, should he desire the glass to follow the track.

   There are no signs of the Jeranyi. Hissl
tugs at his chin. Ildyrom must have pulled back a long ways, perhaps as
far as Berlitos.

   The wizard frowns, and the white mists
fill the glass, eventually showing a line of horse troopers trudging
down a forest road behind the fir-tree banner. Since there are no
forests near Clynya, that means Ildyrom has in fact stopped pressing
his claim on the grasslands-for now.

   The white wizard shakes his head.
“You’ll be stuck here for seasons-seasons,
angel-damn!” His words are low, but they hiss with
frustration.

   He looks around the small room, then out
the narrow window into the blue of the morning and over the low
thatched roofs of Clynya toward the West Fork he cannot see from the
second story of the barracks. As he does, the image fades from the
glass.

   “Terek… with you
scheming in Lornth, how will I ever get out of here? If I’m
successful, Ildyrom won’t get the grasslands back, and
I’ll be stuck here. If I’m
not…” He shakes his head and looks down at the
blank glass.

   In time, he studies the mirror once more,
and the mists swirl, and in the midst of the swirling white appears the
Roof of the World, and the black tower that stands, despite the storm,
and the silver-haired figure in olive-black who trudges up the stone
steps. The glass also shows the aura of darkness that surrounds the man
in the glass.

   “A mage, and he knows it
not.” After a time, Hissl gestures, and the image vanishes,
leaving only a blank and flat mirror on the small table.

   Finally, he smiles, tightly, thinking
about bandits and the Roof of the World.

 

 

XXX

 

STANDING OUTSIDE THE lander, with the light wind that promised
fall ruffling his hair, Nylan slowly finished the gruel that passed as
morning porridge, along with cold bread, his thoughts on the tower once
more.

   Huldran and the others had been less than
pleased when Nylan had insisted on putting a drain in the bottom of the
tower, nor had Ryba been happy when he had used the laser to drill
through some of the rock.

   “A waste of
power…”

   Nylan disagreed-the lowest level of the
tower needed to be dry. Dampness destroyed too many things. He
swallowed the last bite of the lumpy gruel with a shudder and glanced
toward the tower. At least the roof and doors were in place, and he
could concentrate on making the place livable. Outside the front door,
Cessya and Weblya had already begun to haul stones in to fill the space
between the walls of the causeway.

   The engineer walked over to the wash
kettle and rinsed the wooden platter before racking it. He hoped that
they could finish the tower kitchen before long-but he needed to work
out the problems with making the water pipes. If the climate were
warmer he could have just built a covered aqueduct, but that would
freeze solid for half the year.

   He walked back toward Ryba, his eyes
rising back toward the dark stones of the tower that was somehow tall,
squat, and massive all at the same time.

   “What are you
thinking?” asked Ryba. “You’re not really
even here.”

   “About water pipes, kitchens,
laundry.” He paused. “About building a bathhouse or
whatever.”

   “I suppose you want to start a
soap factory, too.”

   “Someone else can worry about
that. I’m an engineer, not a chemist.”

   “Good.” She laughed
harshly. “The bandits are whittling away at our ammunition.
We need more blades. Can you coax out another two dozen?”

   “Another two dozen?
Don’t most of the marines have one?”

   “They’ll need
two.”

   Nylan pursed his lips. “I can
do some. I don’t know how many. I thought the cells would be
the problem, but there’s a raggedness in the
powerheads.”

   “And you had to drill a
drain?”

   “Yes… if you
didn’t want all the supplies to mold and mildew.”

   She shook her head.
“You’re stubborn.”

   “Not so stubborn as you
are.” Nylan wondered how long before everyone would think he
was obsessed with building, if they didn’t already. Why
didn’t they see that they had one chance-just one?

   A single clang on the triangle echoed
through the morning. Ryba and Nylan looked up to see Llyselle ride
across the meadow. Llyselle bounced slightly in the saddle, but Nylan
knew that he bounced even more when he rode. He didn’t have
Sybran nomad blood-or training. The tall, silver-haired marine reined
up outside the cooking area, but before she could dismount, Ryba stood
there, Nylan not far behind her.

   “There’s a herder
down there, waving a white flag,” Llyselle announced.
“He’s got some sheep or goats, and something in
cages.”

   “Let’s hope he wants
to sell something.” Ryba pointed at the nearest marine-Siret.
“Go find Narliat, and Ayrlyn, and ask them to join
us.”

   “Yes, ser.” Siret
glanced at Nylan with a strange look in her deep green eyes, then
turned away, but Nylan could tell she was definitely thicker in the
midsection, unlike Selitra. Yet Selitra had been sleeping with Gerlich,
and she didn’t seem pregnant. But Siret, the silent
silver-haired guard?

   Before long, Narliat limped up, using a
cane, but without the makeshift leg cast he had worn for so long.

   Ryba repeated Llyselle’s
explanation.

   “Most herders would not come
this high with you angels here. Once this was good summer pasture, but
now…”The former armsman shrugged. “Times
have been hard, and your coins are good. He would not have to drive
animals all the way to Lornth or to Gallos. The cages-they might be
chick-ins.”

   “What does the white banner
mean?” asked Ryba.

   “Ser Marshal, it means he wants
to get your attention. Beyond that? I do not know.”

   “Hmmmm… we need all
the supplies we can buy or grow, and they probably won’t be
enough.” Ryba glanced up at the tower and then back to Ayrlyn
and Narliat. “How do we approach this herder?”

   “You walk down with a handful
of people, I suppose,” began Ayrlyn.

   “Just one or two-not the
marshal or the mage,” added Narliat. “Powerful
angels should not start negotiations with herders.”

   “We did with
Skiodra,” pointed out Ryba.

   “That, it was different,
because it was under a trade flag and Skiodra was himself there, and he
is a powerful trader.”

   “If you say so.” Ryba
glanced around. “All right. Everyone! Get your weapons.
Let’s hope we won’t need them. Meet by the triangle
at the watch station on the right… by the road to the
tower.” She turned to Fierral. “Where’s
Gerlich?”

   “Where he is every morning. Out
hunting.” The head marine’s voice bore overtones of
disgust.

   “If he shows up…
tell him, too.”

   Nylan hurried to the lander where he
reclaimed his sidearm and the blade he had forged, which was too small
for the overlarge scabbard. He tried not to fall over the damned thing
every time he wore it. Ryba might never be without her weapons, but he
couldn’t work with a pistol at his side and a blade banging
his leg.

   Ryba had the big roan saddled when he
reached the watch station.

   The herder waited below at the foot of
the ridge. Occasionally, the man looked up the slope, then back at the
milling sheep, or shifted his weight as he leaned against the side of
the cart.

   Finally, after talking to Fierral and
Istril, Ryba nodded.

   Carrying the small circular shields they
had reclaimed from the last brigands, with Narliat between them, Berlis
and Rienadre walked down the ridge toward the herder, who had a white
banner leaned against his cart. Beyond the herder were perhaps five
ewes with their lambs.

   Nylan and Ryba watched from the rocks at
the top of the ridge as the three neared the herder. The herder and the
three talked, with Narliat doing most of the speaking. Finally, Berlis
turned uphill and gestured.

   Neither Nylan nor Ryba could make out the
words.

   “Do you think it’s
all right?” asked the captain.

   “I don’t know, but
nothing’s going to happen if someone doesn’t head
down there. From what Berlis is trying to tell us, the trader
won’t trade unless a more important person appears.”

   “I don’t like
this,” muttered Ryba.

   “All right, ride down. That
gives you more mobility-and have Istril and some of the others ready to
charge like those old Sybran cavalry.”

   “Very funny.”

   “We need the sheep, and maybe
those chickens, and you know it. So does the herder. He’s
gambling that you just won’t steal them. You’re
gambling that it’s not some kind of setup.”

   “Wish I could see…
everything…”

   Below them, Berlis gestured again.

   “You can’t?”

   “It comes and goes, and some of
it… makes no sense. Some is too clear.” Ryba
vaulted into the saddle. “Fierral! Istril! Stand by.
Llyselle, you ride with me-on the right.”

   Nylan noted that the trees at the base of
the ridge were on the right, but before he could speak the two started
down the ridge, riding slowly. He kept watching, but nothing changed.
The herder watched as the two riders neared, and so did Berlis and
Rienadre.

   Abruptly, Llyselle’s horse
reared, sending the silver-haired marine flying. Ryba bent low in the
saddle, turned her roan toward the trees, and charged.

   “Let’s go!”
Fierral and the others galloped down the ridge.

   Feeling as if he were making a big
mistake, Nylan followed on foot. He was halfway down the ridge, his
worn boots skidding on the rocky ground before he realized he was alone.

   Ahead, the mounted marines charged into
the trees. Nylan heard the reports of the sidearms and saw the sun
flash off Ryba’s blade. He kept moving, but, by the time he
neared the herder’s cart, the action was over.

   Llyselle was limping toward the cart,
looking uphill past Nylan, and the engineer turned and saw Ayrlyn
riding down, carrying two large plastic sacks with green crosses on
them-medical supplies or dressings. Nylan wished he’d been
smart enough to think of a horse or medical supplies, or something.
Instead, he’d just run into the middle of what could have
been trouble, too late to help and without any support.

   He pursed his lips as Ayrlyn rode past.
There was still trouble. Llyselle was holding her right arm, cradling
it, as though it were broken or injured, and Narliat and the herder
were still under the cart. Fierral and Istril had charged off downhill
through the trees.

   Nylan kept walking, his eyes checking on
all sides. As he neared the cart and the beginning of the forest on his
right, he saw several bodies near the trees, and one on the open ridge
ground, with two marines beside her.

   The downed marine was Stentana-an arrow
through her eye. An arrow, for darkness’ sake.

   Nylan counted eight brigand bodies and,
his eyes elsewhere, almost tripped over his scabbard. He caught himself
and turned at the sound of hooves, reaching for the blade, but the
riders were Istril and Fierral, and they led two more horses, each with
a body slung across it.

   Nylan turned toward the cart. There
Ayrlyn was treating a wound caused where an arrow seemed to have ripped
into Berlis’s thigh. Llyselle stood beside Berlis, waiting.

   “Strip the bodies and make a
cairn down there, over by the rocks,” commanded Ryba.
“No sense in dragging them up the mountainside. Take all
their clothes. We need rags as well as anything-but the clothes all
need washing, and then some.”

   Since he didn’t seem to have
been much use, Nylan plodded toward the woods, and grabbed one of the
bodies by the boots and dragged the corpse toward the rocks where Ryba
had pointed, but toward an area where small boulders seemed more
plentiful. Damned if he were going to make burial hard on himself, not
for men killed as a result of their own failed ambush.

   Nylan forced himself to strip the bandit,
barely more than a youth despite the straggly beard and the.scar across
one cheek. The bandit’s purse held only two silvers and a
worn copper, but both silvers were shiny. The man wore a quiver, but
had dropped his bow somewhere. He had no blade, just a knife that was
badly nicked. As for clothing, he had worn a tattered and faded half
cloak that had once been green of some shade, a ragged shirt, once
brown, trousers, also once brown, but of a differing shade, and two
mismatched boots, both with holes in the soles. No undergarments, and
no jewelry.

   After looking at the threadbare garments
and cloak, Nylan agreed with Ryba’s assessment of their use
as rags. He also wondered how many vermin the clothes harbored. At the
same time, in a way, he felt sorry for the dead man. Life
couldn’t have been that easy for him.

   “Another attack?”
Gerlich had ridden in from the trail to the west, the one that looped
north from the ridge before descending and turning west, unlike the
other two-one of which descended around the lower east side of the
ridge and eventually led to Nylan’s brickworks. Across his
saddle lay three large and brown-furred rodentlike creatures, already
gutted.

   “This one was a little
different,” Nylan explained as Siret dragged another body
across the ground and let it fall next to the one Nylan had stripped.
“They used that herder there as bait.”

   “Dump the clothes there in that
pile,” ordered Fierral, still mounted, and pointed to the
stack Nylan had made.

   “What about the coins and other
stuff?” asked Siret.

   “You can keep a knife-if you
don’t have a belt knife,” answered Ryba.
“If you do, pass it to someone who doesn’t. You can
keep the local coppers, too. Share them if you think you can. Give any
silvers or golds to the comm officer- Ayrlyn. We’ll need
those to buy food and supplies-from the next honest trader.”

   “They seem to have things well
in hand,” observed Gerlich.

   The herder and Narliat had crawled out
from beneath the cart. Berlis and Rienadre stalked toward them. So did
Huldran and another seven marines. The herder looked up at the circle
of marines. Then he slumped into a heap.

   “He’s just
fainted,” said Ayrlyn softly.

   “Never saw angry women with
blades,” snorted Ryba. “What about the
others?”

   “I did nothing,”
pleaded Narliat. “Nothing, I swear it.”

   “Just stuff it,”
growled Berlis as Ayrlyn sprayed a disinfectant into the
guard’s wound. “Don’t tell me how you
didn’t see it coming.”

   Llyselle leaned against the side of the
cart, her face paler than her silver hair.

   Brawwwwkkk…
awwwkkkk… From the handful of cages behind the injured
marine came the sound of chickens.

   “Are there any other bandits
around?” Ryba asked Fierral.

   “Istril and I chased down the
two who ran. Istril was complaining that she had to shoot them. She
didn’t want to waste the ammunition.”

   “We need to think about
bows,” snapped Gerlich as he eased his horse next to
Ryba’s. “We need some sort of long-range
weapon.”

   “There are four or five here.
Two got broken,” announced Siret.

   “We’d better start
learning to use them,” suggested Gerlich.

   Nylan frowned. Gerlich was right. But
could he build a better bow? One with a longer range? Out of some of
the composites in the lander?

   “Look out,” whispered
Istril.. “The engineer’s got that look
again.”

   “What about these damned
sheep?” asked Gerlich, gesturing around at the near dozen
ewes and lambs.

   “They’re all
ours,” snapped Ryba. “We’ll let the
herder go.”

   “Don’t forget the
chickens,” Nylan said. “Good source of
protein.”

   “Pay him one copper. I only
suggest,” Narliat added hastily as Berlis glared at him while
Ayrlyn continued wrapping a tape dressing around the wounded
marine’s thigh.

   “Local custom?” asked
Nylan.

   “It is traditional for
treachery. He cannot claim he was not paid.”

   “Fine. Nylan-you and Ayrlyn
take care of it,” said Ryba. “Just make sure he
understands.”

   “He already
understands,” said Ayrlyn. “That’s why he
passed out.”

   Ryba pointed toward Denalle and Rienadre.
“You two, and anyone else you can round up, figure out how to
get these animals up over the ridge and into the grass on the west end.
We can use the manure to fertilize the crops-or maybe compost it some
way for next year. I’m no herder, but they’ll
provide meat at the least and maybe wool, if we can figure out what to
do with it.” She gestured up the ridge.

   “Yes, ser.” The two
nodded and looked at the sheep, then slowly circled downhill of the
milling animals.

   The herder moaned, and Berlis levered her
blade out, wincing, but the point was firm as it rested against the
herder’s neck. The man’s eyes bulged.

   “Go ahead. Explain it to him,
Narliat,” Ayrlyn suggested. She rummaged through the
prepackaged medical gear.

   “I have no copper.”

   Nylan fished out the purse he had taken
from the dead bandit, extracted the single copper, and handed the worn
coin to Narliat. “There.”

   Narliat looked at Nylan, turned to the
herder, then to Berlis. Berlis retracted the sword. The herder
swallowed, but did not move.

   “Sit up,” Nylan
commanded in his poor Anglorat-good enough because the herder sat up
slowly. “Go ahead,” the engineer told Narliat.

   “This is your payment. It is
full payment for your treachery. There is no other payment, save death,
should you reject this coin.”

   The herdsman gulped, looking toward Ryba.
“Kind lady… they made me. They would have killed
me. My ewes, they are half my flock… my children will
suffer… Take the fowl… take them as my gift,
but… the flock… ?”

   Ryba’s eyes were as hard as
emerald. “Your treachery has killed a dozen men, not that
they were worth much, and one of my marines, who was worth much.
Another has lost the use of her arm, and a third took an arrow in the
thigh. Don’t talk of suffering.”

   Narliat looked at Nylan, and the engineer
realized that the herder had not understood a word. “Our
people have suffered from your treachery,” Nylan explained in
Old Anglorat. “You helped make that treachery. The marshal
has been generous. Will you take payment or death?”

   Narliat’s slight nod confirmed
that Nylan’s words met the formula.

   “And,” Nylan added,
though he could not have said why, “do not think to take the
coin and reject the offer. Do not take the coin and curse us. For then
you will live all your days as though you had died, and you will be
tortured endlessly.” He could feel something flash before-or
from-his eyes.

   The herder fell forward in another dead
faint.

   “Friggin‘
torps,” said Berlis. “Man has no guts. Faints
twice, and nothing touched him.”

   “The…
mage… did,” stuttered Narliat. “He-the
herder-will never think a dangerous thought again.”

   “Impressive,” said
Ayrlyn.

   The herder groaned and slowly picked
himself up. “The coin… the copper…
please… please…”

   Narliat handed him the copper.

   “Please… can I take
my cart? Please let me depart.”

   “Go on,” said Ryba.

   The herder looked at Nylan.

   “Go. Never forget.”

   - “No, great one. No.
No.” The herder shivered as he slowly unstacked the four
crates, each with a pair of chickens with reddish-brown feathers. Then
he took the pony’s reins and untied them from the stake in
the ground. Leaving the white banner on the ground, he led the cart
away, looking back over his shoulder every few paces.

   “We need a cart,”
Nylan said, looking at the departing herder.

   “A cart?” asked
Ayrlyn.

   “For firewood, bricks, you name
it…”

   “Fine,” laughed
Ayrlyn. “Saryn and I will work on it.”

   “You?”

   “Why not? If you can build
towers and forge swords, surely two of us can find a way to build a
simple cart.”

   “Now that you’ve
disposed of those logistics, how did you manage that last bit of
terror, Nylan?” asked Ryba.

   Ayrlyn frowned, but stepped back from the
marshal as Ryba edged the roan closer to the engineer.

   “What?”

   “Terrifying that poor
sot.”

   “He’s not a sot,
ser,” said Berlis. “He’s a worthless hunk
of meat.” Then she paused. “I have to admit that
the engineer scared me for an instant, and I didn’t even know
what he was saying.”

   “I’m waiting,
Nylan,” said Ryba lightly.

   The engineer finally shrugged.
“A little applied psychology and a menacing tone in a foreign
accent.” His head throbbed slightly as he said the words, and
he frowned.

   “Psychology, my left
toe,” muttered Ayrlyn under her breath. “Wizardry,
plain and simple.”

   Nylan flushed, but Ryba had eased her
mount back slightly and missed the byplay. The engineer said more
loudly, to catch Ryba’s ear, “I still need to go
down and check the brickworks. There’s nothing I can do here
right now, and I want to get the tower ready to live in.”

   Ryba opened her mouth, closed it, then
said, “All right. I trust you’ll use your senses to
scout the way.”

   The slight emphasis on
“senses” was not lost on the engineer, and he
nodded. “I will, Marshal.”

   “Thank you, Honored
Mage.” She flushed at the title. “And Istril and
Siret can ride with you.” She laughed. “The silver
angels.”

   Nylan frowned before he realized that the
three of them all had the bright silver hair created by the underjump
that had brought them to the Roof of the World.

   “Siret can take
Llyselle’s mount,” continued Ryba. “You
can try one of the captured ones. They look spiritless enough even for
you.”

   Nylan nodded. “That’s
fine.”

   “… what was all that
about?”

   Nylan caught the question Siret whispered
to Ayrlyn as he climbed into the saddle of the old bay.

   “A little formality,
that’s all,” Ayrlyn answered Siret in a dry tone.

   After settling himself into the saddle,
Nylan gingerly flicked the reins of the bay and followed Berlis and
Istril toward the descending ridge road. As he bounced along, he
wondered why he’d insisted on going to the brickworks. Was he
worried that the brigands had found it and damaged it? Or because he
had to do something after looking so stupid?

   Belatedly recalling Ryba’s
admonition, he tried to sense beyond the trail that was still not a
road, for all the travel between the clayworks and the tower. Slowly,
he caught up with the marines.

   “I’ll go
first,” suggested Istril, “then the
engineer.”

   Nylan started to object, then shut his
mouth. If anything went wrong, with only three of them, it
didn’t really matter where he rode. Besides, given all the
dead brigands, why would any who had survived stick around?

   “Hate this frigging
place,” said Siret, now riding behind Nylan.
“Everyone out to kill us, just because we’re
women.”

   “They seem to want to kill me
and Gerlich as well,” Nylan answered. “And Merlin
might have had something to say about it. They don’t seem to
like any strangers.”

   “You’re different,
ser.” Siret’s voice held less anger. “The
men here… they’re not human.”

   “Even Narliat?”

   “He’s the same as the
rest. He’s just scared stiff of us, especially the captain,
the second, and you, ser. Especially you, ser.”

   Why him? Ryba was far deadlier than
Nylan. Why, Nylan couldn’t hit someone with a slug-thrower at
nearly point-blank range.

   The three rode down from the next rise in
the rising and falling trail, and when Nylan glanced back, he saw only
the sky, the plateau rocks, and the trees. Istril had opened more
distance between them, and her head swung from side to side, her head
cocked almost as though she were trying to listen for trouble or even
sniff it out.

   Nylan tried to follow her example,
looking, sensing…

   They continued down the winding trail,
nearly silently, when a vague sense of unease drifted, as if on the
wind, toward Nylan. He squinted, and looked toward the tall evergreens
to the left, but the silence was absolute. That bothered him. All he
could smell was the scent of pine, of fir.

   But there was something…
somewhere…

   “Ser!” cried Siret.

   Even before her words, Nylan had seen the
flicker of motion to the left of the trail. As he yelled
“Istril!” he turned in the saddle and drew and
threw his blade toward the man who had stepped clear of the thick
underbrush and leveled the bow at the slender marine who led the three
angels.

   In a fashion similar to working the
ship’s power net and the laser, Nylan smoothed the air flow
around the spinning blade, extending its range, and somehow ensuring
that the point struck first.

   “Uhhh!” The brigand
crumpled.

   Nylan rode toward the forest, sending his
senses into the trees, but felt no others nearby. Siret had ridden up
beside him, her slug-thrower out in one hand. Istril had wheeled her
horse, ducking low against her mount’s back as she rode up.

   Before the engineer and Siret reached the
bandit, the figure convulsed, and a wave of whiteness flared across
Nylan. He shivered and barely hung on to the saddle as the power of the
death he had created washed over him.

   “Ser? Are you all
right?” Istril reined her mount up beside Nylan.

   “He’s
fine,” affirmed Siret.

   “Fine…
now,” said Nylan after drawing a deep breath, trying not to
shake as he forced himself out of the reflex step-up that he
hadn’t even realized that he had triggered. He took another
deep breath and glanced down at the dead brigand’s young
face-another man barely out of youth, looking for all the world almost
like the one he had stripped farther up the mountain. Brothers? Or did
a lot of dead bearded young men just look alike? He took another slow
deep breath, wishing he had something to eat or drink.

   Why all the bandits? Surely, the word was
out that it was dangerous to take on the angels up in the mountains?

   “You stopped him. He was going
to shoot me, wasn’t he?” asked Istril.

   “Yes.”

   “Frigging right,”
added Siret, the deep green eyes cold.

   “How did you know he was
here?” asked Istril, adding belatedly,
“Ser?”

   “I just sort of felt that
someone was here.” Nylan dismounted and eased his blade from
the bandit’s chest, then wiped it clean before replacing it
in the scabbard that the blade did not really fit. “And I
couldn’t reach him. Gerlich was right. We need longer-range
weapons.”

   Istril studied him and pointed.
“You have your sidearm.”

   Nylan swallowed. “I guess I
really didn’t think. So I threw the blade. I hoped it would
distract him, anyway.”

   His head throbbed with the lie.
He’d hoped to kill the bandit, plain and simple, and
instinctively he’d known that he couldn’t have with
the slug-thrower. He’d always been a lousy shot. So he added,
“I hoped it would kill him, but I wasn’t sure I
could do it. Not with a pistol.” With his uttering of the
truth, the sharp throbbing in his skull faded into a dull ache. The
engineer rubbed his forehead. What was happening to him? Throwing
blades on a low-tech planet, getting headaches from lies, forging
blades with magic-or the equivalent, knowing that he could kill with a
blade and not a sidearm. Was he dreaming? Was he dead?

   He shook his head. The pain, the aches,
the constant tension-they all seemed too real for death or dreams.

   “Are you certain
you’re all right?” Istril’s eyes
continued to survey the forest to their left, then the cliffs to the
right.

   “Yes. Mostly.” Nylan
bent and went through the brigand’s purse. A few coppers, and
three shiny silvers. A thin gold ring. A beat-up knife. He checked the
clothing and boots. “Boots worn through and stuffed with some
old leather.” He stood and sniffed. “He had to have
a mount somewhere.”

   The engineer cast out his senses again,
searching not for more brigands, but the horse.
“I’m not sure, but I think his mount is tethered
back there.”

   “What about more
bandits?” asked Istril.

   “We thought we had them
all,” said Siret, “and this one popped
up.”

   The engineer shook his head.
“There aren’t any. Not alive.”

   “Narliat says you’re
a wizard, too-a black one. Do you know what that means?”
Istril glanced back toward the trail and then focused on Nylan.

   “No.” Nylan took the
reins and began to lead his mount through the trees toward the horse
tethered behind a massive pine just past a large boulder sunk in pine
needles. “A black wizard? I’ve got enough trouble
just being an engineer.”

   Istril ducked and rode after him. After a
moment, so did Siret.

 

 

XXXI

 

“NOW THAT YOU have reclaimed the grasslands, when
will you reclaim the Roof of the World? And your father’s
honor?” The gray-haired Lady Ellindyja shifts her
not-inconsiderable bulk on the upholstered bench in the alcove. Her
fingers dart across the embroidery hoop, the needle shining like a
miniature blade that she deftly wields. Sillek stands behind the carved
chair with the purple cushion, resting his arms on the back.
“The grasslands are reclaimed only so long as Koric and Hissl
remain in Clynya. The moment they leave, Ildyrom’s forces
will return, in even greater numbers, no doubt. I send armsmen into the
Westhorns, and I won’t only lose the grasslands, but half the
land between Clynya and Rohrn.”

   “If you cannot reclaim that
honor, you must do something to solidify your position. You need an
heir, Sillek.” His mother’s voice is flat.
“You know you do.”

   “I also need score five more
armsmen, control of Rulyarth, and Ildyrom in his grave.”

   “Not to mention regaining
control of the Roof of the World.” The needle continues to
dart through the white fabric, trailing crimson-red thread.

   “As I have told you, most
honored mother, that might be a very bad idea, right now.”
Sillek straightens and purses his lips. “A very bad
idea.”

   “A bad idea? To reclaim your
patrimony? Given all that your father has done for you, Sillek, how
could you possibly even think that, let alone say it so soon after his
last sacrifice for you?” The glittering needle darts through
the fabric like a cavalry blade chasing a fleeing footman.

   Sillek waits until the pace of the needle
slows. “I took your advice, dear Mother, and we are already
reaping its benefit, and it has cost us little.”

   “Costs? You talk so much of
costs.” The needle shimmers, then plunges into the fabric.
“Costs are for merchants, or for scoundrel traders.”

   “I am not being clear, I
fear.”

   “Clear? I fear you are all too
clear. You will give up your patrimony because your enemies are too
much for you.”

   “I do not intend to forfeit my
patrimony, Mother dear, and your assumption that I would do so speaks
poorly for me, and not well for you. I would certainly never wish to
relinquish that which my honored sire had gathered for my benefit or
the benefit of our people.” Sillek walks toward the alcove.

   “Could you explain your logic
to your poor benighted mother, Sillek, Lord of the Realm? How can you
retain your patrimony when you refuse to reclaim it? Are you a magician
now?” The needle stitches another crimson loop in a droplet
of blood that falls from a gray sword.

   Sillek smiles. “From what Terek
has told me, and from my other sources, so far the angels on the Roof
of the World have destroyed at least three bands of brigands trying to
claim my reward-that reward you suggested so wisely. And two of the
lesser angels have been killed, and four or five wounded, while close
to a score of brigands have been destroyed.” His smile turns
into a laugh. “I couldn’t do nearly so well, and I
certainly am in no position to lose another score three of trained
armsmen.”

   Sillek glances out the window and toward
the river. “Next spring… after winter up
there-then we’ll see.”

   “I do hope so, Sillek, dear. I
do hope so.” The sharp needle stitches in another loop of
blood.

   Sillek’s lips tighten, but he
does not speak.

 

 

XXXII

 

NYLAN OPENED HIS eyes slowly in the gray light that came
through the open tower window. Although fall had scarcely arrived, the
nights had begun to chill, enough so that the single blanket seemed
thin, indeed. Blankets were not used in large numbers on spacecraft,
and the few that had been brought down felt less than adequate for the
winter ahead. That meant another set of items to be bought from the
all-too-infrequent traders. Nylan blinked as he wondered how they could
pay for all that they still needed.

   Although the landers had been stripped of
what would make the tower more habitable, that had provided little
enough. The marines occupied the third level of the tower. Gerlich,
Saryn, Ayrlyn, and Narliat occupied part of the fourth level. The fifth
was used for miscellaneous storage, and Ryba and Nylan rattled around
in a sixth level that had little in it except for the two lander
couches lashed together and a few weapons and personal effects.

   Only the shutters on the second and third
levels were finished, the results of Saryn’s and
Ayrlyn’s handicrafts, and there were no internal doors. Rags
had been pieced together to curtain off the two jakes and provide some
privacy. Nylan hoped that they could finish the bathhouse and
additional jakes facilities before too long-not to mention the shutters.

   As he moved slightly, Ryba’s
eyelids fluttered, and she moaned. He waited, but she did not open her
eyes. So Nylan slowly shifted his weight more in order to look out
through the casement. A trace of white rime frosted the outer edge of
the window ledge, but the whiteness seemed to vanish as the first
direct rays from the sun touched the dark stone. The hint of wood smoke
drifted in the window, blown down from the chimney momentarily.

   Over the crude rack in the corner hung
their clothes, including the ship jackets that probably would not be
heavy enough for the winter ahead.

   Nylan’s eyes shifted back to
Ryba’s face, to the curly jet-black hair cut so short and the
pale clear skin, to the thin lips and the high cheekbones. Her eyelids
fluttered again, and she groaned.

   “Not yet… not
yet,” she murmured.

   Nylan waited, almost holding his breath.

   “No…”

   He reached out and touched the cool bare
shoulder. “It’s all right. It’s all
right.”

   Ryba shook her head and moistened her
lips, but her eyes did not open for a moment. Then she shitted her
weight on the lander couch and looked directly at the engineer.
“No it’s not. I was dying, and I won’t
finish everything that needs to be done for Westwind, or for
Dyliess.”

   “It was just a
dream…” Nylan paused. “It was a dream,
wasn’t it?”

   Ryba shook her head again, and squinted
as she sat up. Then she swung her feet off the couch, letting the
blanket fall away from her naked figure, until it covered only her
waist and upper thighs. Her back to Nylan, she faced the open window,
looking out toward the northern peaks that showed a light dusting of
snow from the night before. The faintest touch of yellow and brown
tinged the bushes and meadow grasses.

   “It wasn’t a dream.
It was real. My hair was gray, and I was lying here, except I was in a
big wooden bed, and there was glass in the windows, and people in gray
leathers were standing around me.” Ryba shivered and then
stood, padding to the clothes rack, where she pulled on her
undergarments and then the brown leather trousers and an old shirt-both
plunder.

   “If your hair had become gray,
that had to be a long time from now.” He stood and stretched.

   “Nylan… I
wasn’t finished, and it hurt that I didn’t
finish.”

   “Ryba,” Nylan offered
gently, “no one who really cares about anything is ever
finished with life. And you care a lot.” He forced a smile,
then began to dress himself.

   Ryba finished with the bone buttons of
the trousers and then buttoned the shirt. “You’re
probably right, but it was real… too real.”

   “Another one of your senses of
what will happen?”

   She nodded. “They come at odd
times, but some have already happened.”

   “Oh?” He
hadn’t heard that part.

   “Little things, or not so
little. I saw your tower almost from the beginning-and I know what the
bathhouse will look like.” She sat back on the joined lander
couches that served as their bed and pulled on her boots.

   “Who is Dyliess?”

   “Our daughter. I’m
pregnant, and she’ll be born in the spring, just before the
passes melt.”

   Nylan’s mouth dropped open.
“You… never…”

   “She’ll be a good
daughter, and don’t you forget that, Engineer.”
Ryba smiled. “I wanted the timing right. You can’t
do that much in the winter here, and next summer…
we’ll have a lot of problems when people realize
we’re here to stay. They think the winter will finish us, but
it won’t.”

   “Promise?” he asked.

   “I can promise that, at least
so long as you keep building.” She stood in the open doorway
at the top of the steps. “I want things to be right for
Dyliess, and they will be.”

   “A daughter…
you’re sure?”

   “You wanted a son?”

   “I never thought-one way or
another.” He shook his head, still at a loss, still amazed.

   “You’ll have a son.
I’ll promise that, too.” Her voice turned soft,
almost sad.

   “You
don’t…”

   “I know what to promise, Nylan.
I do.” Her eyes met his, and they were deep and chill, filled
with pain. “There’s no time to be melancholy,
Engineer.”

   The forced cheer in her voice
contradicted her calm and pale face. As they looked at each other,
Nylan could hear the hum of voices from below, and the smell of
something cooking, although he wasn’t sure he was in any
hurry to find out what Kyseen had improvised for breakfast.

   “We do our best, Nylan, in
spite of what may be.”

   “May be or will be? Can these
visions of yours be changed?” Nylan sat down on the couch-bed
and reached for his shipboots, his eyes still on her.

   Ryba shrugged. “Maybe I only
see what can’t be changed. Maybe it can be. I don’t
know, because this is something new.”

   “All of this is something
new.” Nylan pulled on his ship-boots, getting so worn that he
could feel stones through them.

   “You need new boots. You ought
to check the spares. We’ve only got about twenty pair left
over.”

   “I suppose you’re
right.” Nylan stood. “I have to be. I’m
the marshal. You have to, also. You’re the mage. Now that
we’ve settled that, let’s see if breakfast is
remotely palatable.” She started down the steps, the hard
heels of her boots echoing off the harder stone, and Nylan followed,
trying not to shake his head. A daughter, for darkness’ sake,
and Ryba had named her, and seen her in a vision of her own death. At
that, he did shake his head. The Roof of the World was strange, and
getting stranger even as he learned more.

   They walked toward the pair of tables
stretched out from the hearth. In a room that could have handled a
dozen or more tables that size with space to spare, the two almost
looked lost. The benches had finally been finished, and for the moment
everyone could sit at the same time.

   Ryba marched toward the head of the
table, but Nylan lagged, still looking around the great room, amazed
that they had completed so much in barely a half year. Of course, the
tower was really not much more than a shell, but still… He
smiled for a moment.

   Breakfast in the great hall had gotten
regularized-a warm drink, usually a bitter grass and root tea; cold
fried bread; some small slices of cheese; any meat left over from
supper-if there had been meat served-and something hot, although it
could be as odd as batter-dipped and fried greens or kisbah, a wild
root that Narliat had insisted was edible. Edible kisbah might be,
reflected Nylan, but something that tasted like onions dipped in
hydraulic oil had little more to recommend it than basic nutrients. It
made the heavy fried bread seem like the best of pastries by
comparison. So far the few eggs dropped by the scrawny chickens had
gone into the bread or something else fixed by Kyseen.

   “Good morning,
Nylan,” said Ayrlyn.

   “How did you sleep last
night?” the engineer asked the redhead, who huddled inside a
sweater and a thermal jacket and sat on the sunny south casement ledge
that overlooked the meadow and fields.

   “Not well. It’s
getting cold. When will the furnace be finished?”

   “Not until after the
shutters,” he answered.

   “The shutters won’t
help that much.”

   “Unless we cut a lot more wood
and finish the shutters, the furnace won’t be much
use,” Nylan pointed out.

   “Don’t we have any
armaglass at all?” Ayrlyn shivered inside the jacket.

   “There’s enough for
six windows.” He put his lips together and thought.
“Maybe eight. Most of them ought to go in here. These are
south windows.”

   “That’s why
I’m sitting here trying to warm up. I’m not a
Sybran nomad,” Ayrlyn pointed out, turning slightly on the
stone so that the sun hit her back full on. “Saryn and I
could make simple frames that would go on pivots if you could mortar
the pivot bolts or whatever in place. Can you cut the
armaglass?”

   “If the laser lasts.”
Nylan laughed, then frowned as his stomach growled.

   “You need to eat.”

   “I can hardly wait.”
The engineer glanced toward the table where Ryba was serving herself.

   “It’s not bad this
morning-some fried meat that has some taste, but not too much, if you
know what I mean, and there’s a decent hot brew. Narliat
showed Selitra a bush that actually makes something close to tea.
Bitter, but it does wake you up.”

   “All right. Bring me a window
design, and we’ll see what we can do.” He started
toward the table.

   “We need salt,
demon-damn!” Gerlich’s voice rose from the end of
the table nearest the completed but empty hearth. “Without
salt, drying meat’s a tricky thing, and I don’t
want to smoke everything.”

   “I’ll have Ayrlyn put
it high on the trading list.” Ryba’s voice, quieter
than Gerlich’s, still carried the length of the room.

   Gerlich strode by, wearing worn and
tattered brown leathers rudely altered to fit his large frame and
carrying a bow and quiver. “Good day, Nylan.”

   “Good day. How’s the
bow going?”

   Gerlich stopped and shrugged.
“It doesn’t shoot far enough, or with enough power,
but it’s good for some of the smaller animals-the furry
rodents.” He grinned. “I’m tanning those
pelts-Narliat told me some of the roots and an acorn they use-and by
winter I might have enough for a warm coat.” The grin faded.
“There’s not much meat on the fattest ones, and I
don’t know how good the hunting will be when the snow gets
deep.”

   “I don’t,
either.” Nylan paused. “Let me think about
it.”

   “Do that, Engineer.”
Gerlich raised the bow, almost in a mocking salute, and began to walk
toward the main door. “I’m going to try my luck at
fashioning a larger bow.”

   “Good luck, Great
Hunter.” Nylan made his way to the table and sat down across
from Ryba.

   “It’s not
bad,” she said. “The meat, I mean.”

   “What is it?”

   “I didn’t
ask.”

   “One of those rodents, baked
and then fried,” said Kyseen, replacing the battered wooden
platter with another; half-filled with strips of fried meat.
“The stove makes all the difference, and the bread even
tastes like bread now. The eggs help, but those chickens
don’t lay them fast, and I’m letting ‘em
hatch a few, ’cause we’ll need another cock, a
rooster”-the cook flushed-“before long.”

   “If we had windows and that
furnace,” suggested Siret, with a shiver, “that
would help, too.”

   Nylan glanced at her, and she looked away.

   “You’ll warm up a lot
before long,” added Berlis.

   The silver-haired Siret flushed.

   Nylan felt sorry for the pregnant marine
and added, “I’m working on the furnace…
as soon as we have more bricks.” Gingerly, he used his
fingers to take several strips of the fried rodent, and two slices of
bread. There was no cheese, but there was a grass basket filled with
green berries. He tried one, and his mouth puckered.

   “Those green berries are real
tart, ser,” said Berlis, glancing at Siret.

   Siret flushed, but said quietly,
“It might have been better if that arrow had been centered
between both thighs. It would have fit right there.”

   “Enough,” said Ryba,
but Siret was already walking past the end of the table with no
intention of returning. The marshal turned her eyes to Berlis.
“Comments like that could get you killed.”

   “Yes, ser.”
Berlis’s voice was dull, resigned.

   Nylan ate more of the green berries and
the fried rodent strips without comment. The bread was good, and he
finished both slices down to the crumbs.

   “What are you planning
today?” Ryba asked.

   “I’ll try to squeeze
in two more blades before I go back to the bathhouse. What about
you?”

   “Trying to put up a more
permanent fence for the sheep. They got into the beans last
night.”

   “I’d rather have
mutton anyway,” came a low voice from down the table.

   “I would, too,”
admitted Ryba, “but we need both.”

   Those left at the table laughed, and Ryba
took some more rodent strips..So did Nylan. Before he had finished
eating, Ryba stood and touched his arm. “I’ll see
you later.”

   His mouth full, Nylan nodded.

   After he gulped down the rest of his
breakfast, he walked out the causeway and down to the
“washing area” of the stream. In the shade of the
low scrub by the water were a few small ice fragments, which reminded
the engineer that the bathhouse would soon become a necessity, not a
luxury. He took a deep breath, and then an even deeper one when he
splashed the icy water across his face. The sand helped get the grease
off his hands, but he wished they had soap, real soap.

   “Along with everything
else.” Nylan snorted and mumbled to himself. He tried to
ignore the basic question that the soap raised. How could he or Ryba
turn Westwind into an economically functioning community?

   Because the south yard had become the
meeting place, training yard, and thoroughfare, Nylan carted the laser
equipment out to the cleared space beside the bathhouse structure on
the north side of the tower.

   After he checked the power levels and
connected the cables, Nylan looked from the laser powerhead to the
endurasteel braces, then at the half-finished north wall of the
bathhouse. Huldran was mixing mortar, while Cessya and Weblya were
carrying building stones.

   He lowered the goggles, pulled on the
gauntlets, and flicked the power switches. Huldran had finished mixing
the mortar and had begun to set the higher stones in the north wall by
the time Nylan had finished the rough shaping of the blade.

   He cut off the power, pushed back the
goggles, and sat down on the low sills of the unfinished east wall of
the bathhouse. Working with the laser was as exhausting as lugging
stones. While his mind understood that, it still felt strange. Then
again, the whole planet was strange.

   After he felt less drained, he stood and
walked around the bathhouse and uphill to the spring where he filled
the plastic cup that would probably wear out even before he did. He
sipped the water, too cold to drink in large swallows, until he had
emptied the cup. Then he refilled it and walked back down and checked
the firm cells.

   “How many more blades will you
do, ser?” asked Huldran.

   “I don’t know. There
are enough braces for another dozen, but whether the laser will last
that long is another question.”

   “Do we have enough
stone?”

   “Probably not. This afternoon,
I’ll cut some more. We may have to finish this with bricks. I
asked Rienadre to create some molds for bigger ones, closer to the size
of the stones.”

   “That’s good, but
I’d rather have stone.”

   “So would I, but
we’re lucky we’ve gotten this far.”

   “I’d not call it
luck, ser.” Huldran flashed a brief smile.

   “Perhaps not,” said
Nylan, thinking of the nine individual cairns overlooking the cliff. He
lowered the goggles and triggered the power, beginning the final
shaping of the blade.

   When he looked up after slipping the
blade into the quench trough, Huldran had finished the north wall and
was beginning on the east wall. He removed the blade and set it on the
wall to finish cooling.

   Clang! Clang!

   “Bandits!”

   A half-dozen horses clattered over the
ridge and down toward the tower. The riders had their blades out as
they headed for the tower. Behind them, Nylan could see two marines
following on foot.

   Crack! Crack! The two shots from one of
the rifles-presumably from the lookout at the tower’s
northern window on the upper level-resulted in one horseman dropping a
blade and clutching his arm. He swung his mount around and back uphill,
but the others galloped toward the tower, directly at Nylan.

   The engineer groped for the blade that
wasn’t at his side. Then, with a deep breath, he flicked the
power switches on the firin cells back on, and dropped the goggles over
his eyes.

   “It ought to
work…” he muttered. As the power came up, he
forced himself to concentrate, trying to extend the beam focal point
through what he thought of as the local net, creating a needle-edged
lightknife.

   “Get the mage! There!”

   The remaining five riders turned toward
Nylan. The ground vibrated underfoot as they pounded downhill.

   A field of reddish-white surrounded the
focal tip of the weapon as Nylan, more with his senses than his hands,
slewed the lightblade across the neck of the leading rider, then the
second.

   Nylan staggered, as his eyes blurred,
with the white backlash of death, and his head throbbed. He just stood,
stock-still, trying to gather himself together, to see somehow, through
the knives of pain that were his eyes.

   Another set of hooves clattered across
the hard ground, these coming from the south side of the tower. As the
second rider finally went down, Istril and Ryba rode past the tower,
their blades out.

   Ryba’s throwing blade flew, and
the third rider-his mouth open in surprise-collapsed across his
mount’s neck. The horse reared, throwing the body half-clear,
and dragging the rider by the one foot that jammed in the left stirrup
all the way to the edge of the upper field before the horse finally
stopped.

   Crack! Crack!

   The fourth horse staggered and fell, but
the rider vaulted free and ran toward Nylan, his blade raised, and his
free hand reaching for the shorter knife at his belt.

   The engineer swung the laser toward the
attacker, readjusting the focal length with his senses, fighting
against his own headache and the knives in his eyes. The white-red fire
blazed, and the flame bored through the man. The corpse pitched
forward, and the blade clattered on the stones less than a body length
from Nylan’s feet. Nylan went down to his knees, and stayed
there, flicking off the energy flow to the powerhead as he swayed under
the impact of another death, yet worrying that he had not cut the power
earlier. They had so little left and so much to do.

   The single remaining raider ducked under
Istril’s slash, started to counter, and looked at the stump
of his forearm as Ryba’s second blade flashed downward.

   “Yield!” demanded the
marshal, her eyes cold as the ice on Freyja.

   The redheaded man, his hair a mahogany,
rather than the fire-red of Ayrlyn or Fierral, clutched at his stump
without speaking.

   “Yield or die!”
yelled Nylan in Old Anglorat, forcing himself to his feet, still
clutching the wand that held the laser’s powerhead.

   “I… Relyn of Gethen
Groves of Lornth… I yield.” The young fellow was
already turning white.

   “Nylan, can you handle this?
There’s still a bunch below the ridge.” Ryba had
pulled her blade from her other victim, not leaving the saddle, then
turned the roan toward the ridge, Istril beside her.

   Relyn swallowed as he heard her voice and
watched the two gallop uphill, joined by four others.

   “You’d better get
down.” Nylan glanced around. Both Huldran and Cessya had
left, either to find mounts or follow on foot with their weapons.
“If you don’t want to bleed to death.”

   As he struggled out of the saddle, Relyn
looked closely at Nylan, seeing for the first time Nylan’s
goggles and gauntlets. Then he pitched forward.

   Nylan set aside the powerhead and walked
toward the mount and its downed rider, noting the well-worked leather
and the tailored linens of the rider. The black mare skittered aside,
but only slightly as Nylan dragged the young man toward the laser.

   “Hate to do
this…” he said.

   A brief burst of power at the lowest
level and widest spread cauterized the stump.

   Nylan kept looking toward the ridge, but
no one appeared. With his senses he could tell that Relyn was still
alive and would probably live since the blackened stump
wasn’t bleeding anymore. The engineer wished he could have
done something else, but what? He laughed harshly. Here he was,
worrying about whether he could have done a better job saving a man who
had been out to remove his head.

   He left the laser depowered and walked to
the wall where he picked up the blade he had just forged. Wearing the
gauntlets, he could use it-if the need arose.

   Should he chase after the others-or wait?
He decided to wait, hoping he wouldn’t have to use the laser
again. He wasn’t sure he could take any more killing. Since
Relyn was still unconscious, he walked toward the black mare, starting
with her to round up the three horses that had remained in the area,
tying their reins to various stones on the solid part of the north wall
of the bathhouse. Then he forced himself to check through what remained
of the three bodies that he had blasted in one way or another with the
laser.

   Ignoring the smell of charred flesh, he
methodically raided purses, removed jewelry, and stacked weapons on the
partly built east wall. Then he went to work removing those garments
that might still be usable. All three mounts had heavy blankets rolled
behind the saddles.

   “Oooohhh…”
Relyn moaned, but did not move.

   Nylan looked toward the ridge. Finally,
he looped some cord around the unconscious man’s arms and
feet, and then climbed onto the mare, who backed around several times
before finally carrying Nylan and his recently forged blade toward the
ridge.

   The wave of death that reached him as he
crested the ridge almost knocked him from the saddle. All he could do
was hang on for a moment before starting downhill toward the figures on
horseback and the riderless mounts.

   As he descended, he began to discern
individual figures, and almost all those he saw were in olive-black.

   A black-haired figure turned the big roan
toward him. “Nylan! Are there any more by the
tower?”

   “Just the one I tied up. The
others are dead. What happened here?”

   “There must have been nearly
thirty of them…” Ryba smiled a grim smile.
“A handful got away. The others, except one or two, are
dead.”

   “What about us?”

   Ryba shook her head. “For this
sort of thing-it’s not too bad. We lost two, I think, and
Weindre took one of those blades in her left shoulder. We’re
claiming the spoils of war right now.”

   “Did you notice that these
weren’t bandits?” he asked.

   “What do you mean?”

   “Good mounts, good saddles,
good clothes, good weapons, and jewelry and a lot of coins,”
Nylan explained.

   “We’ll talk about it
later. We need to gather up everything.” Ryba rode back
downhill.

   Since she seemed to have everything under
control, Nylan turned the black around and headed back up the ridge to
the tower.

   By the time he had reached the
uncompleted bathhouse and tied up the black, Relyn’s eyes
were open.

   “I gave my word,
Mage,” he snapped.

   “I wasn’t sure, and
you weren’t awake enough for me to ask you,”
returned Nylan in Old Anglorat as he unfastened the cords. He extended
his senses to Relyn’s stump. “That probably hurts,
but you’ll live.”

   “Better I
didn’t.”

   “I doubt that.” Nylan
massaged his forehead, trying to relieve the pain in his eyes and the
throbbing in his skull.

   “Have you never been exiled,
unable to return? That is what will happen when my sire discovers I was
bested by women, and fewer of them than my own solid armsmen.”

   “All of us are exiles, young
fellow. As for the women, you might note that they’re not
exactly the kind of women you have here.” Nylan felt very
safe with that assertion.

   “You don’t
jest,” returned the man dourly. “They had small
thunder-throwers-and their blades… had we blades such as
those, things would have been different. Did those blades come from the
heavens, also?”

   Nylan looked down at the stony ground.

   “You look confounded,
Mage.”

   “My name is Nylan.”
The engineer didn’t wish to answer, but even the thought of
not answering was increasing his headache.

   “Ser Nylan, surely you know
where came such blades.”

   The engineer took a deep breath.
“I… made them.”

   “Here? On the Roof of the
World?”

   Nylan nodded.

   “Light! I must be cozened into
attacking angels each worth twice any armsman, and supported by a mage
the like of which our poor world has never seen.” Relyn
struggled into a sitting position on the wall. “You killed
three of my men, did you not?”

   “Yes.”

   “Might I look at that
blade?”

   Nylan looked down at the blade he had
thrust through the tool belt. “This? It’s not
finished. The hilt needs to be wrapped.” He eased the blade
out, half surprised that he had not cut himself with it, though it was
shorter than the crowbars carried by the locals. He showed it to Relyn,
who brushed the metal with the fingers of his left hand.

   “Would that I had a blade like
that,” said the younger man.

   “They are for… the
guards… of Westwind.”

   “Westwind?”

   Nylan gestured to the tower.
“That’s what we have named it.”

   “Westwind.” Relyn
shivered: “Westwind. A cold wind.”

   “Very cold,” Nylan
agreed, thinking about Ryba’s coolness after the battle. What
was he supposed to have done? Sprung into the saddle and chased after
them? He laughed, thinking of himself bouncing along on the black.

   “You laugh? You
laugh?”

   “Not at you, Relyn. At me. I
was thinking about how awkward it is for me to ride a horse.”

   “I do not understand. Do not
all men ride? All mages?”

   “Yes, but we don’t
always ride horses into battle.” Nylan turned at the sound of
hooves, watching as Huldran and Cessya rode up.

   “You’re already
organized, ser, aren’t you?” asked Huldran.

   “Pretty much,” Nylan
admitted.

   “Who’s the pretty
boy?” asked Cessya.

   “I think he’s the
guilty one. He thinks his father will disown him for being defeated by
a bunch of women.”

   “He’s not
bad-looking.”

   “They think you’re
not bad-looking, Relyn,” Nylan said. “Even if you
are the one who plotted this. Might I ask why?”

   Relyn shrugged. “I am the
younger son, and when I heard that Lord Sillek had offered lands and a
title to whoever reclaimed the Roof of the World… I spent
what I had. Now… I am ruined.”

   “If you had succeeded,
we’d have been ruined,” pointed out Nylan as he
turned to Huldran. “Who did we lose?”

   “Weblya and Sheriz. Weindre got
slashed up, but Jaseen says she’ll pull through. A bunch of
bruises and cuts for everyone else, except the marshal.”
Huldran sighed. “It’s going to get tougher.
We’re just about out of rounds. Best to use what
we’ve got left for the rifles.”

   “I wouldn’t
know,” Nylan said, “but that would be my
suggestion.”

   “That’s what the
marshal told us.” Huldran turned in the saddle.
“We’ve got to make another big cairn.
Siret’s bringing down the cart for the bodies. Since
you’re all right, ser…”

   “Go on.” Nylan waved
the two off. “Do what you have to.”

   “A curious tongue you speak,
Mage. Some words I understand. You are not, properly speaking, an
armsman, are you?”

   “No. I’m an
engineer… like a smith. I build things, like the tower, or
this.”

   “Yet you slew three men, and
you forge blades that…” Relyn groped in the air
with his left hand. “And the women, they are mightier
warriors than you?”

   “For the most part,
yes.”

   “Demons of light save us, save
us all, for they will change the world and all that is in it.”

   Of that, Nylan had no doubts. And, from
what he’d seen, it would probably be a better world-but would
it be one that had a place for him? From Ryba’s actions and
gestures, daughter or no daughter, he wondered.

 

 

XXXIII

 

THE GRAY CLOUDS churn out of the north, and a cold rain falls
across Lornth, heavier showers splattering in waves across the red tile
roofs of the town. From behind the leaded-glass window,
Sillek’s eyes look south toward the river, though he sees
neither roofs nor river.

   “Sillek, did you hear
me?”

   He turns toward the alcove where his
mother the lady Ellindyja adjusts the white fabric over one wooden
hoop, then slips the second hoop in place to hold the linen taut.
Golden thread trails from the needle she holds in her right hand.

   “My dear mother, I fear I was
distracted.”

   “Distracted? The Lord of Lornth
cannot afford distractions, mental or otherwise, and certainly not
distractions of the nature of the… lady…
Kirandya.” Ellindyja knots the end of the thread with motions
that seem too precise for the white and pudgy fingers.

   “I suppose not.”
Sillek’s words are harsh as he sits on the straight-backed
wooden chair opposite the alcove bench. “You were
saying?”

   “Ser Gethen-you might recall
him, Sillek. He has more than score ten in armsmen, and all the lands
between the rivers north of Carpa, even a hillside vineyard. I think he
has several daughters near your age as well, and the middle one is said
to be quite a beauty.”

   “I don’t believe you
were talking about his daughters.”

   “Ah… no.”
The golden thread completes the edge of a coronet on the linen, and the
needle pauses. “Ser Gethen had a son, Relyn or Ronwin or
something. He heard of your offer of lands and a minor title for
destroying those witches on the heights-”

   “Your idea, as I
recall,” interjects Sillek, “and a good
one.”

   “And the young fellow gathered
his funds and some armsmen and attacked the witches. He had a score and
ten men, well armed. A half dozen returned.”

   “I had heard something of his
exploit, but only this morning. Pray, tell me-how did this news come to
you?”

   “The youth’s
mother-Erenthla-she and I were once close, and she sent a messenger.
That’s of no matter now, Sillek. You certainly should not
expect me to be totally cloistered. What is of import is that Ser
Gethen is less than pleased. Erenthla-she is Lady of Gethen Groves-
conveyed that. Rather clearly.” Ellindyja’s needle
flickers through the fabric, creating another lobe to the coronet
taking shape on the linen. “She hinted at her
liege’s loss of honor and that it might be linked to your
failure to uphold that noble heritage bequeathed to you.”

   “Since you are determined to
pin this upon me, why should I be disturbed? The young fellow knew the
risks. Any raiding has risks. And he was a hothead, from what I recall.
The kind that thinks every fight brings honor.” Sillek
stands, then his brows knit. “He was killed?”

   “Far worse-he was captured.
Being captured by women -even angels-makes it most humiliating,
especially for his sire. Erenthla was clearly distraught. I should not
have to point this out to you. Of course, Ser Gethen was forced to
disown him, but he was Gethen’s second son of two, and second
in the succession, and there are only sisters after him.”

   “Ah… the matter
becomes clearer. I should court one of those sisters in the guise of
placating Ser Gethen…” Sillek paces back to the
window and stares into the heavy rain. His lips tighten and his fingers
knot around each other.

   “I did not suggest that. It is
not a bad idea, but I was talking of honor of the honor your failures
have cost you, and now, Ser Gethen. The honor you have steadfastly
refused to acknowledge or uphold. The honor that you subjugate to
concerns more suited to a petty merchant. My son should not be a
merchant, but a lord.”

   Sillek turns and slowly walks across the
floor. He stops by the chair, and his eyes flash. “I am Lord
of Lornth, and my father did not die for honor. He died looking for
exotic women. Of that, I should not have to remind you, of all people.
His honor, his duty, lay in preserving and protecting his people-and
there he failed. He lost more than twoscore trained armsmen for
nothing! I know what honor is. Honor is more than a reputation for
seeking out danger mindlessly. It is more than attacking enemies
blindly without regard to costs and deaths.

   “You talk of honor, but the
honor that you speak of so carelessly and endlessly will bring nothing
but pain and needless death. There is no honor in destroying Lornth
through mindless attacks on powerful enemies. There is no honor in
squandering trained armsmen like poor tavern ale.” His hand
jabs toward Ellindyja as she starts to speak. “No! I will
hear no more protestations about empty honor, and should you ever throw
that word at me again, you will be cloistered-in high and lonely honor
in my tallest tower. There you can think of honor until your dying day.
And may it comfort you, because no one else will. Do you understand, my
dearest mother?”

   Ellindyja pales. Her mouth opens.

   Sillek shakes his head grimly.

   Finally, she bows her head.
“Yes, my son and liege.”

   For a time, silence fills the chamber.

   “I still value your
advice,” Sillek says evenly.

   Ellindyja does not look up, as the
unsteady needle slowly fills in the second lobe of the coronet she
stitches.

   “About Ser Gethen’s
daughter,” he suggests.

   “Courting Ser
Gethen’s daughter would not be a bad idea,”
Ellindyja says quietly, her eyes still on the embroidery. “No
ruler is so rich that he cannot afford to look at both a lovely lady
and lovely lands, and this… incident… left Ser
Gethen with but one heir.”

   “Fornal is reputed to be
outstanding in Arms.”

   “He may be,” said
Ellindyja, “but life is uncertain, as your father discovered.
Although Ser Gethen is a warrior of caution and deliberation, I do know
that he is less than pleased.”

   Sillek turns from the window.
“You think I should go to Carpa and soothe his ruffled
wings?”

   “It could not harm you, and,
since you are so preoccupied about the possible predations of Lord
Ildyrom, rather than… other considerations, you would be
close enough to return to Clynya, should that remote need
arise.” The pudgy fingers fly momentarily, and the golden
thread continues to fill in the outline of the coronet.

   “It is scarcely remote when a
neighboring lord builds a fort on your lands.”
Sillek’s face is stern, and chill radiates from him.

   A jagged line of lightning illuminates
the roofs of Lornth, and the crash of nearby thunder punctuates
Sillek’s observation.

   “That is true. Perhaps you
could make that point with Ser Gethen in person.” The lady
Ellindyja lowers her embroidery. She does not meet his eyes.

   Sillek lifts his hands, and then lowers
them. “We shall see.”

   “Sillek dear, I understand your
concerns for the greater good of Lornth. I only provide those
suggestions that I feel might be helpful for Lornth… and for
preserving your patrimony.”

   Sillek’s lips tighten again.

   Ellindyja looks away. “Ser
Gethen is upset, my son and liege. I cannot disguise that.”

   Sillek’s eyes fix on her, but
she says nothing.

   “He is upset.” He
takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. “And it is true.
You cannot change that. For your judgment in this matter, I am
grateful, but… I do not appreciate even indirect references
to honor and patrimony. Those are best reserved for cloistered
towers.”

   “Yes, Sillek. You have made
your point, and you are Lord of Lornth.” Ellindyja bows her
head again.

   Sillek offers the faintest of head bows
before turning back toward the door as another rain squall pelts across
the roofs outside.

   After the door closes, Ellindyja smiles
sadly, and murmurs, “But you cannot escape honor.”

   The embroidery needle flashes, and the
third golden lobe of the coronet forms.

 

 

XXXIV

 

WITH THE SHUTTERS in the great hall closed, the fire in the
hearth left the room-the end closest to the fire-nearly comfortable for
Ryba and the marines in just the light and tattered shipsuits they wore
for heavy work. Although Narliat had kept complaining about the chill,
Nylan had resisted using the new furnace, especially since the grates
for the ducts on each floor were not finished. Besides, it
wasn’t that cold, not yet, and he worried about having enough
firewood for the long winter.

   Nylan wore his ship jacket, unfastened
and open, as did Ayrlyn and Saryn. Relyn and Narliat wore their heavy
cloaks wrapped around them, and sat on the right edge of the raised
hearth, their backs to the heaping coals and the logs of the fire.

   Two squat candles-among the few in
Westwind and procured by Ayrlyn and Narliat-flickered on the table. The
candles and the fire managed to impart a wavering illumination to the
great hall, although the corners were dark, as was the end of the room
nearest the stairs. Nylan could see clearly without the light. That was
not the case for most of the others, as they squinted to see when they
turned toward the gloomier sections of the hall.

   Ayrlyn had drawn one of the candles close
to Relyn’s stump, because he had complained that the arm was
chaos-tinged.

   “Chaos-tinged?” asked
Saryn.

   “Infected,” explained
the redhead, looking at the arm.

   Nylan could feel as Ayrlyn extended her
senses to examine the arm, much in the same way that he had manipulated
the fields around the laser.

   “The arm’s not
infected,” Ayrlyn said. “You’ll
live.”

   “What sort of life will I live,
healer?” asked Relyn. “The great warrior of Gethen
Groves defeated by a handful of women, and what kind of life awaits
me?” He inclined his head to Nylan. “And by an
unknown mage.” He snorted. “Who would believe that
less than a score of women, a single armed man, and one mage could kill
nearly thirty well-armed and -trained men?”

   Nylan took another look at
Relyn’s stump. Crafting something like a hook or artificial
hand might not be that difficult, and it might make the man more
functional and less self-pitying.

   Gerlich smiled briefly at the mention of
“a single armed man,” then glanced toward Ryba. His
smile vanished.

   “Ser, they killed three score
of Lord Nessil’s men,” suggested Narliat, raising
his maimed right hand. “He even had a wizard with him. And we
have not seen any of the great Lord Sillek’s men, or Lord
Sillek himself, come to follow his sire’s example. Lord
Sillek did succeed his father, did he not?”

   “He did, armsman. That was why
I was here.”

   “Would you care to
explain?” asked Nylan, knowing the answer, but wanting the
others, besides Ryba, to hear it from the local noble himself.

   Ryba sat in the single chair at the end
of the table-a rude chair, crude like all the other crafts, but Saryn
had insisted that the marshal should sit at the end, and had made the
chair herself. Ryba half turned in the chair to hear Relyn’s
words.

   “Lord Sillek offered a reward
of the Ironwoods and a title for whoever cleansed the Roof of the
World.”

   “Cleansed?” asked
Ryba coldly. “Are we vermin?”

   While her accent in Old Anglorat left
something to be desired, Relyn understood and swallowed.
“Your pardon… but women like you are not seen
elsewhere in Candar, nor across either the Eastern or the Western
Ocean.”

   “There are women like us in
Candar, and they will find their way to Westwind,” Ryba said.
“In time, all the lands west of the Westhorns will be ruled
by women who follow the Legend-the guards of Westwind…
I’ve mentioned the name before.”

   “The Legend?” asked
Relyn.

   Nylan glanced at Ayrlyn, who looked down.

   “Ayrlyn? Now would be a good
time to introduce your latest song.”

   “As you wish,
Marshal.” Ayrlyn walked to the far end of the hall where she
removed the lutar case from the open shelves under the central stone
stairs. She left the case and carried the instrument toward the hearth.

   “What is this
Legend?” asked Narliat.

   “It is the story of the
angels,” Ryba said smoothly, “and the
”fate of those who put their trust in the power of men
alone.“

   Nylan winced at the certainty in her
voice, the absolute surety of vision. Like her vision of a daughter,
although that was certainly no vision. There were enough signs to
Nylan, especially to his senses, but while he could not tell the sex of
the child, Ryba had no doubts.

   “All Candar will come to
understand the vision and the power of the Legend,” Ryba
added. “Though there will be those who oppose it, even they
will not deny its truth and its power.”

   Ayrlyn stood before the hearth, lutar in
hand, adjusting the tuning pegs, and striking several strong chords
before beginning.

 

   From the skies of long-tost Heaven

   to the heights of Westwind keep,

   We will hold our blades in order,

   and never let our honor sleep.

 

   From the skies of light-iced towers

   to the demons ‘place on earth,

   We will hold fast lightnings
‘powers,

   and never count gold’s worth.

 

   As the guards of Westwind keep

   our souls hold winter’s sweep;

   We will hold our blades in order,

   and never let our honor sleep…

 

   As Ayrlyn set down the small lutar, Ryba
smiled. The hall was hushed for an instant. Then Cessya began to clap.

   “Don’t clap.
It’s yours, and you need to sing it with her. Again,
Ayrlyn.”

   The redheaded healer and singer bowed and
strummed the lutar. Her silver voice repeated the words.

   By the last chorus of “and
never let our honor sleep” all the marines who had become, by
virtue of the song and Ryba’s pronouncement, the guards of
Westwind Keep had joined in.

   Nylan tried not to frown. Had Ryba used
the term “guard” before? Was she mixing what she
thought she had said, her visions, and what she wished she had said?

   Relyn looked at Narliat, and both men
frowned.

   “You frown, young Relyn. Do you
doubt our ability at arms? Or mine?” asked the marshal.

   “No, sher.”

   “ ‘Ser’
will do, thank you. The term applies to honored warriors.”
Ryba turned away from the two at the corner of the hearth. “A
good rendition, Ayrlyn. Very good.”

   Ayrlyn bowed and walked toward the
shadows that shrouded the stairs.

   Relyn glanced toward Ryba’s
pale and impassive face and whispered to Narliat. “She is
truly more dangerous than Lord Sillek.”

   Far more dangerous, Nylan felt, for Ryba
had a vision, and that vision just might change the entire planet-or
more. Sillek and the others had no idea what they faced.

   The engineer’s sense of reason
wanted to deny his feelings. Logic said that a mere twenty-plus marines
and an engineer could not change history, but he could feel a cold wind
every time he thought of the words Ayrlyn had composed, as though they
echoed down the years ahead.

 

 

XXXV

 

IN THE NORTH tower yard, Nylan glanced from the armaglass
panels up at the sky, where gray clouds twisted in and out and back
upon each other as they churned their way southward, bringing moisture
from the northern ocean.

   Behind him Huldran and Cessya ground more
lavastone for the mortar needed to finish the southern wall of the
bath-house and the archway in its center that would lead to the north
tower door. As the powder rose into the air, the intermittent cold
breeze blew some of the fine dust toward the engineer.

   Kkkchewww!!! He rubbed his nose and
looked at the two marines, working in their threadbare and tattered
uniforms. Then he checked the connections on the power cables, and the
power levels on the scrambled bank of firin cells he was
using-twenty-four percent.

   He lowered the goggles over his eyes.

   Baaa… aaaa… The
sound of the sheep drifted around the tower. Nylan hoped someone knew
something about sheep, because he didn’t. They gave wool, but
how did one shear it? Or turn the fleece into thread or wool or
whatever got woven into cloth? There was something about stripping the
oil from the wool, too. Saryn or Gerlich probably could slaughter them
and dress them, but how many did they want to kill-if any? And when?

   What about the chickens? Kadran had them
up in a narrow cut Nylan had made above the stables-a makeshift chicken
coop. Would it be warm enough in the winter, or should they be in with
the sheep or horses? Who would know? He couldn’t attempt to
resolve every problem, but he hoped someone else could figure out the
sheep and the chickens.

   He forced his thoughts back to the job at
hand-cutting the armaglass to fit the window frames that Saryn and
Ayrlyn had made.

   Nylan studied the chalked lines on the
scarred and once-transparent panels from the landers. If he cut
carefully, and if his measurements were correct, he might have enough
glass for eight windows-four for the great hall and the rest for the
living quarters-one or two on each floor where people slept. In the
coming winter, the tower would still be dark-they had no lamps and only
the few candles.

   His eyes flicked in the general direction
of the second large cairn-and the eleven individual cairns. How could
Ryba promise that Westwind would change history when two seasons had
reduced their numbers by more than a third? Children? But how many?

   “Stop it!” he told
himself, lifting the powerhead.

   Cessya and Huldran glanced up, and Nylan
looked down at the armaglass, forcing himself to take a deep breath and
concentrate on the cutting ahead.

   He triggered the energy flow to the
powerhead, and began his efforts to narrow the laser’s focus
even more. Unlike his efforts with stone or metal, the armaglass sliced
quickly and easily, and Nylan soon looked on eight evenly sized pieces,
each ready to fit into a frame.

   After clicking off the power, he checked
the cell-bank energy level-barely down at all. His eyes narrowed, and
he looked at the armaglass sections, then pushed back the goggles and
walked over to the frames. Each frame was complete, except for the top
bar, so that the armaglass could be slipped into the grooves.

   Still wearing the gauntlets, Nylan picked
up a section and eased it into the frame. It stuck halfway down, but
with some tugging and wiggling, he managed to push the glass all the
way into the frame. Saryn and Ayrlyn could assemble and install the
rest of the windows. Another problem resolved.

   Then he looked back at the laser. Because
he had used so little energy, he might even have some power to use for
Gerlich’s project, not that Gerlich had asked Nylan directly,
beyond complaining about underpowered bows.

   Nylan removed the fraying gauntlets and
wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm. Cool breezes or not,
using the laser left him hot and sweaty. After a swallow of water, he
looked at the two smaller braces on the stone, along with the two long
rods of composite beside them, then at the sketch that Saryn had drawn
from memory.

   Nylan studied the pair of braces once
more, then pulled on the gauntlets and eased the goggles in place. The
lenses were so scratched that he relied on his senses more than on his
sight. All the equipment from the Winterlance was falling apart,
overstrained and stressed from usage far heavier than ever planned for
by Heaven’s shipbuilders and the angels’ suppliers.

   Finally, he triggered the power to the
laser. The composite sliced easily, and he quickly had the rough form
he needed. Then he set that aside and began shaping the brace toward
the ideal shape that Saryn had suggested.

   The first long, slow pass with the laser
left him with the metal too heavily bunched near the grip. After three
passes, with the sweat streaming down his face and around his goggles,
he had the shape he needed, leaving an open groove down what he thought
of as the spine of the metal.

   He cut the power flow and set the laser
wand aside gently, removing the goggles and gauntlets and sitting on a
building stone. There he wiped and blotted his face.

   In the meadow to the east, the grass was
browning more each day. The leaves of local deciduous trees, even those
that seemed like oaks and had acorns, did not change color much. Half
the leaves seemed to turn to a light gray and shrivel into almost thin
strips clinging to the branches, while the other half dropped off. Why?
He didn’t know and might never.

   “Ser?” asked Huldran
as she carried a stone past him and toward the slowly rising southern
wall. “What’s that?”

   “A bow…
maybe.”

   “You’ll get it
right.”

   Nylan wasn’t sure about that,
but he put the goggles back on, and then pulled his hands into the
gauntlets. After measuring the composite rod, he triggered the laser,
trimmed the rod more, and then started to mold the metal around the rod.

   EEEssssssTTTIThe would-be bow exploded
into burning sparkles, and Nylan threw it into a stone-walled corner.
He backed away quickly and set down the wand as quickly as he could so
that he could beat out the smoldering fabric on his upper arm. As he
did, he thanked the high command for insisting on flame-retardant
uniforms.

   He took off the goggles and studied the
ragged and now burned and holed right sleeve. A section of his biceps
was faintly reddened, but he could feel just warmth, not the pain of a
burn.

   With that, he watched as his protobow
collapsed into a puddled mass of metal and melted composite. What had
happened? He knew iron-based alloys could burn, but the laser
hadn’t been that hot.

   He glanced upward. Overhead, the gray
clouds continued to twist back and forth on each other, but not even a
sprinkle had fallen on the Roof of the World, let alone lightning. On
the other side of the tower, a procession of marines conveyed the last
of everything remotely usable from the landers into the tower. Another
group was systematically finishing the stripping of the lander shells
and storing what could be used for future building or raw materials in
the first lander, which had been dragged up next to the bathhouse wall.
The second lander shell was at the foot of the narrow canyon where
Nylan had quarried his stone, partly filled with cut and dried grasses
for winter feed for the horses. Drying racks, made of evergreen limbs,
ranged across the spaces below the ridge rocks.

   Nylan glanced back at the cooling mess of
metal. Beside him stood Huldran, just looking.

   “Fireworks, yet?”
asked Ryba from behind him. “How did you two manage
that?”

   “I haven’t figured
that out yet, but I was trying to form metal around a composite
core-”

   “The gray
stuff-cormclit?” Nylan nodded.

   “It’s pretty
heat-resistant in a directional way-that’s why it’s
used as a hull backing,” pointed out the marshal.

   “Oh,
frig…” The engineer shook his head. Next time,
he’d have to cut the composite so that the heat-reflective
side was to the inside of the groove. It made a stupid kind of sense,
although he couldn’t have given the explanation a good
physicist could have.

   “I take it you figured it
out?” asked Ryba. “You have that look that says
you’re so stupid not to have realized it from the
beginning.” She paused. “No one else would ever
figure out your mistakes if you weren’t so upset about
them.” She laughed briefly. “What were you trying
this time?”

   “Another weapon.”

   Huldran eased away from the two.
“Need to set these stones, ser, Marshal, before the mortar
locks up.”

   “Go ahead,” said
Nylan.

   “We’ll need every new
weapon we can get,” Ryba said.

   “We’re about out of
slug-thrower shells?” asked Nylan.

   “Maybe fifty, seventy-five
rounds left in personal weapons, about the same for the two rifles.
That’s not enough.” She shrugged. “What
were you trying to make?”

   “One of those endurasteel
composite bows.”

   “We could use some, but where
did you get the idea?”

   “Gerlich was muttering the
other morning about the lack of accuracy and range with the native
bows.”

   “He always mutters-when
he’s around.”

   Thunder rumbled across the skies, echoing
back from Freyja, and fat raindrops began to fall.

   “Excuse me. I need to get the
laser under cover.” Nylan began to disassemble the equipment.
First the powerhead and cable went back to the fifth-level storage
space-into an area half built into the central stone pedestal-then the
meters, and finally, the firin cells themselves. Ryba helped him carry
the cell assembly. After that he set the cooled and melted puddle of
metal and composite in a corner of the uncompleted bathhouse. He might
be able to use the mess in some fashion later… and he might
not.

   Then, through the scattered but big
raindrops, he and Ryba walked up to the emergency generator, spinning
in the fall wind. It too was failing, bearings squeaking, and power
surging, but it still put power into the firin cell attached to the
charger. Both charger and cell were protected by a framework of fir
limbs covered with alternating layers of cannibalized lander tiles held
in place with heavy stones.

   “Still charging.”
Nylan carefully replaced the covering.

   “You’ve made the
power last longer than anyone thought possible,” Ryba said.

   Looking downhill at the tower, Nylan
answered, “There’s more to do, a lot
more.”

   “There always will be, but
Dyliess will appreciate it all. All of the guards will.”

   At the clop of hooves, both turned toward
the narrow trail from the ridge, where Istril rode toward the front
gate to the black tower.

   “Trouble?” asked the
engineer.

   “I don’t think so.
She wasn’t riding that fast.”

   They had almost reached the south side of
the tower before the triangle gong rang. Clang! Clang!

   “Those traders are back,
Marshal,” called Istril as she rode from the causeway toward
Nylan and Ryba. “The first ones.”

   “Skiodra,” Nylan
recalled.

   “He’s the one.
He’s got nearly a score of men, and eight wagons.”

   “I told you we needed
weapons,” said Ryba dryly.

   Nylan shrugged.

   “Get a dozen
marines,” ordered Ryba, looking at Istril, “fully
armed. Have the rifles stationed to sweep them if we need it.”

   “Gerlich is out
hunting,” pointed out Istril, “with half a
squad.”

   “Get who you can.”
Ryba turned to Nylan. “You, too. You did so well last time
that you can handle the trading.”

   Nylan shrugged, then headed to the
washing area of the stream. He wished the bathhouse were completed.
Then he laughed. The tower had gone more quickly than anyone could have
anticipated, far more quickly, and he was still worrying, except it was
about showers, and laundry tubs, and more jakes.

   Ryba headed toward the stables.
“I’ll have a mount waiting for you.”

   “Thank you. I won’t
be too long.”

   After a quick wash and shave, with the
attendant cuts, a return to the tower, and a change into his other
shipsuit, he donned the slug-thrower he hoped he didn’t have
to use, and the black blade he had infused with black flux order. Then
he walked down the stone steps, past the aroma of baking bread, and out
the front gate of the tower.

   As Ryba had promised, a mount was
waiting, its reins held by Istril.

   “They just left, ser, at a
walk.”

   “Can we catch them by walking a
bit faster?” asked Nylan. The not - quite - swaybacked gray
whickered softly as he mounted.

   “I think so.” Istril
grinned.

   Nylan and the silver-haired marine with
the warm smile joined the other eleven marines and Ryba halfway down
the ridge toward the spot where the traders, dressed in the same
quilted jackets and cloaks, waited by a single cart that flew a trading
banner. Two were on foot before the cart, the remainder mounted behind
the cart.

   Skiodra, still the biggest man among the
traders and wearing in his shoulder harness an even bigger broadsword
than the long blade Gerlich usually bore in similar fashion, stepped
forward. “I am Skiodra, and I have returned.” His
Old Anglorat did not seem so thick, but Nylan wondered if that were
merely his growing familiarity with the local tongue.

   “Greetings, trader,”
answered Ryba, still mounted. Her eyes did not leave his, and after a
moment, the trader bowed.

   “Greetings, Marshal of the
angels. We bring more supplies. Have you blades to trade?”

   “These are better,”
said Ryba. “We will bring them down shortly. What do you have
to offer?”

   “Are we sure they are
angels?” interrupted the bushy-haired and full-bearded trader
behind Skiodra.

   Skiodra waited, enough so that Nylan
understood the ploy.

   “If you wish to join those
under that cairn there,” suggested the engineer quietly,
pointing to the heaped rocks that covered the slain bandits,
“you may certainly test the strength of your
beliefs.” He dismounted and handed the reins to Istril. Then
he walked forward, slowly drawing his blade, the one he had kept
because it was even darker than the others and seemed to hold darkness
within its smooth luster, and extended it sideways and slowly.
“You might also wish to touch this blade if you
doubt.” He smiled, knowing that he had bound some of the
strange flux energy within the blade.

   The blond reached for the blade, but his
fingers never touched the black metal. Instead, he stepped back, his
face pale.

   Nylan extended the side of the blade
toward Skiodra. “Perhaps…”

   “No. My friend spoke too
hastily.”

   As before, the first cart-the one with
the banner this time-was filled with barrels.

   “Shall we start with the wheat
flour?” asked Skiodra. “I have the finest of flours
from the fertile plains of Gallos, even better than the flour of
Certis, and closer and fresher.”

   “And doubtless unnecessarily
costly, for all that trouble, trader.”

   “It is good flour.”

   “I am sure it is,”
agreed Nylan, “but why should we pay for a few
days’ freshness when we will be storing it and not using it
until seasons from now?”

   “I had forgotten-until
now-that, mage or not, you came from a long and distinguished line of
usurers,” responded Skiodra. “As I told you once,
my friend, and I will accord you that courtesy, it is far from costless
to travel the Westhorns. This is good flour, the best flour, and that
freshness means that you can store it longer, far, far
longer… at a silver and three coppers a barrel, I am
offering you what few could find.”

   Nylan tried not to sigh. Was every
trading session going to be like the first? “And fewer still
could afford,” he responded as smoothly as he could.
“Granting you the freshness, still five coppers would more
than recompense your travel.”

   “Five coppers! Five? You would
destroy me,” declared Skiodra. “With your black
blades, do you think that you can eat metal in the cold of winter? Or
your soldiers, will they not grow thin on cold iron? A generous man am
I, and for a silver and two I will prove that generosity.”

   Ryba’s eyes appeared to look at
neither Skiodra or Nylan, but remained on the blond trader.

   “Such generosity would quickly
bring you dinner on plates of gold and silver. At six coppers a barrel,
you would be feeding your mounts sweetcakes.” Nylan smiled
broadly to signify his amusement.

   “Sweetcakes? More likely maize
husks begged from gleaning fields. A silver and one… not a
copper less!” Skiodra looked toward the roiling clouds.
“May the devils from the skies show you my good
faith.”

   “Your faith, that I
believe,” answered Nylan. “It is your price that
not even a spendthrift second son would swallow. Seven
coppers.”

   “I said you were a mage. Oh, I
said that, and blades like black lightning you may forge, but your
father could not have been a mere usurer, but an usurer to usurers. You
would have my horses grub stubble from peasants’ fields. Even
to give you a gift to start trading, at a silver a barrel, I would have
to sell not only my daughter, but my son.”

   “At eight coppers a barrel,
because I would reward your efforts to climb here, you would still have
golden chains for your daughter.”

   “I could not sell a single
barrel at nine coppers,” protested Skiodra.

   “How about eleven barrels for a
gold?” Nylan’s fingers slipped over the hilt of his
blade as he sensed the growing chaos and tension in the big guard next
to Skiodra and keyed in the reflex boost he had always worried about
using, even on the Winterlance’s neuronet.

   “Done, even though you will
ruin me, Mage.”

   Ryba looked sideways, and the blade of
the blond trader flickered-but not as fast as Nylan’s, which
flashed like a stroke of black lightning through shoulder and armor.

   The blond trader’s dead eyes
were frozen open in surprise, and Ryba’s blade rested against
Skiodra’s throat, as Nylan removed and cleaned his own blade,
fighting against the throbbing and aching that battered his skull, both
from the chaos of death and the agony of forced reflexes. Would every
death hurt that much? Or would it get worse?

   “This sort of thing
isn’t good for a trader,” Nylan remarked
conversationally. “People might get the wrong idea. We might
think that you really wanted to rob us.” He squinted, trying
to fight off the pain.

   “I did not
know…” Skiodra looked toward the dozen armed men
with bared blades who edged their mounts toward the mounted guards of
Westwind.

   “Let us just say that you did
not,” said Ryba. “You might tell your men to
sheathe their blades. Could any of them have stopped the
mage?”

   “No.” Skiodra looked
toward his men. “The angels mean well, I think, and it might
be best if you put your blades away.”

   About half did.

   “Who wants a blade right
through his chest?” asked Ryba with a smile.

   A single man charged, and
Ryba’s left hand flickered. The dark-bearded man slumped
across the horse’s mane with the throwing blade through his
chest, and his mount reared. The body slid into the dust.

   The dozen mounted angels eased forward,
each bearing an unsheathed and dark blade Nylan had forged.

   Skiodra looked at the grim faces of the
women, and the blades. The other five men sheathed their blades slowly,
though their hands remained on their hilts.

   “This really isn’t
very friendly, Skiodra,” said Nylan. “Have you seen
that your men all moved first, and they’re all
dead?”

   Skiodra swallowed, eyes glancing at
Ryba’s blade, back at his neck.

   “Doesn’t that tell
you something?” pursued Nylan. “Now… do
you want to trade for your goods, or do you want us to slaughter you
and take them?”

   “How do I know-”

   “Stuff it!” snapped
Ryba. “We would prefer to trade, and you know it.
You’d prefer to steal, and we know it.”

   A pasty cast crossed Skiodra’s
face.

   “So we’ll trade, and
if you try anything nasty, we’ll just kill you,”
concluded Ryba. “I thought you agreed to nine coppers a
barrel for the flour.”

   “Yes, Marshal of
angels.”

   As Ryba lowered her blade, Skiodra mopped
his forehead.

   “What else do you have to
offer?”

   Skiodra forced a grin under his pale and
sweating brow. “I might ask the same of you, Mage.”

   “How about two dozen of the
finest blades produced west of the Westhorns, directly, more or less,
from a place called Carpa. Of course,” Nylan said lightly,
“I expect that five of them would pay for everything in your
carts with a few golds to spare.”

   “I slandered your father, Mage.
You had to be whelped from a white witch and sired by the patron angel
of usurers.” Skiodra shrugged. “I cannot blame you
for trying to get the best price, but your idea of fairness would have
ruined Lestmerk, and he could get blood from stones and water from the
sands of the Stone Hills.”

   “Now that we have that
understood,” laughed Nylan, doing his best to ignore his
continuing headache, “what do you offer from the remaining
carts?”

   “I will show you, provided you
bring down those blades.”

   “I’d say to bring
ten,” Nylan suggested to Ryba, “just so that the
honorable Skiodra has a choice. And some of the breastplates,
maybe.”

   Skiodra frowned, and Nylan translated
roughly. “I suggested that the marshal bring a double handful
to allow you a choice.”

   “Mage… you alone
must be the patron of usurers.”

   Nylan shrugged. “Since you are
the patron of ambitious traders, I’d say we could work out a
fair trade.”

   Skiodra laughed, but the sweat beaded on
his forehead, and Nylan wondered why. Did he seem that formidable?

   Cessya turned her mount back up the
ridge, presumably to bring down the cart and some of the blades
captured from Relyn’s forces.

   In the end, Ryba and Nylan looked upon
nearly thirty barrels of flours-maize, wheat, and barley; five bolts of
gray woolen cloth; one bolt of a red and blue plaid; four barrels of
dried fruit; two kegs of a cooking oil from something called oilpods;
three axes; two saws; and enough other assorted goods to fill a
wagon-plus one of Skiodra’s carts, the oldest and most
rickety. He’d even managed to get a barrel and a small-keg of
feed corn that might help the chickens through the winter.

   The guards remained mounted until the
trader’s entourage was well along the road toward Lornth.
Then, as half the women began to load the two carts, Nylan mounted and
eased the gray up beside Ryba.

   “This whole business is a
little strange,” he observed. “You notice that
Skiodra didn’t show up until after you made hash of young
Relyn’s forces. And this Lord Sillek-he’s the son
of the lord you killed in the first battle-he’s offered land
and a title for our destruction, enough that this young hothead-Relyn,
I mean-was willing to take the chance.”

   “It’s not all that
strange,” answered Ryba. “Skiodra wanted to see if
we’d been hurt, and how badly. If we were weak, then
he’d attack. Since he found us strong, he’ll sell
the information to someone. Lord Sillek, I suppose.”

   “Something like
that,” Nylan agreed. His eyes covered the goods that had cost
eight blades and some breastplates. “We still have some
coins.”

   . “The flour and fruit will
help, but it’s going to be a long winter,” Ryba
said quietly, “even if we can get some more from those
traders that Ayrlyn has been working with near… what is
it?… Clarta, Carpa? The economics are the hard part-in war
or peace, I suppose.” As the last of Skiodra’s
riders disappeared beyond the ridge, she turned her mount uphill.

   Nylan rode beside her, still bouncing in
his saddle, wondering if he would ever learn to ride as smoothly as the
others. “Do you think we can make this work economically?
Westwind, I mean?”

   “I already have,”
said Ryba slowly, “thanks to Skiodra and young
Relyn.”

   “You don’t sound
happy. Is that another vision?”

   “Not exactly. But the pieces
I’ve already seen make more sense.” Ryba shifted
her weight in the saddle and turned to face Nylan. “Look how
many bandits there are. Trading has to be dangerous. Westwind will
patrol the roads across this section of the mountains-what are they
called?”

   “The Westhorns.”

   “And we’ll charge for
it. I think the sheep will make it.”

   “But that’s trading
lives for coin…” said Nylan. “More or
less.”

   “Yes, it is. So is everything
in a primitive culture. Have you a better answer? Can we grow enough up
here to support even the few we have left? And if we could, could we
keep it without fighting?”

   “No,” admitted Nylan.

   “If they want to die by the
sword, we’ll live by having sharper and faster blades. Thanks
to you, smith of the angels.” Ryba did not look at Nylan as
she rode past the sentry point where Berlis and Siret, and their
rifles, had surveyed the trading.

   Nylan could feel Siret’s green
eyes on him, and he nodded and smiled to the pregnant marine briefly.

   “Smith of the angels?”

   “For better or worse,
that’s your legacy, Nylan.” Ryba kept riding,
crossing the ridge crest and turning the roan toward the canyon that
served as a corral until the stables could be completed.

   “And yours? Or do I want to
know?”

   “Ryba, of the swift ships of
Heaven. Ryba, one of the founders of Westwind and the Legend. Blessed
and cursed throughout the history to come, I suspect. Don’t
ask more, Nylan.”

   “Why not?”

   “Because I won’t
tell. Not even you. Not Dyliess, when her time comes. It hurts too
much.”

   “You can tell me.”

   “No. If I tell, then
you-nobody-will act the same, and we might not survive. I
can’t risk that, not with all the prices everyone’s
already paid. And will. And will keep paying.” She kept
riding.

   Nylan looked toward the tower, and then
at Ryba’s dark hair and the dark hilts of her blades. Ryba of
the swift ships of Heaven. Ryba, the founder of the guards of Westwind
and the Legend. He swallowed, but he urged the gray to keep pace with
the roan.

 

 

XXXVI

 

THE STOCKY MAN whose black hair is streaked with gray escorts
Lord Sillek into the room at the north end of the courtyard, carefully
closing the door behind him.

   Two heavy wooden doors stand open to the
veranda and the shaded fountain that splashes loudly just beyond them.

   Sillek glances around the room, his eyes
taking in the inlaid cherry desk, the two bookcases filled with
manuscripts bound in hand-tooled leather, and the two cushioned
captain’s chairs that are drawn up opposite a small table.
The chairs face the fountain, and the north wind, further cooled by the
fountain, blows into the study.

   “My sanctuary, if you
will,” says the gray-haired man.

   “Quite well appointed, Ser
Gethen,” responds Sillek, “and certainly private
enough-although…” He gestures toward the open
doors and the fountain.

   “It is more discreet than one
would suspect.” Gethen laughs. “It took some doing
before the sculptor understood that I wanted a noisy
fountain.”

   “Oh…”
Sillek smiles, almost embarrassed.

   “Please, Lord Sillek, do be
seated.” Gethen slips into the chair on the left with an
understated athletic grace.

   “Thank you.” Sillek
sits almost as gracefully.

   “My lady Erenthla has expressed
a concern that you might have come to the Groves as a result of her
hasty note to the lady Ellindyja. She wrote that missive while she was
in some distress.” Gethen clears his throat.

   “I must admit that the receipt
of the letter, certainly not its contents, did remind me that I had
been remiss in paying my respects. My arrival represents a long-overdue
visit to someone who has always been of great support and good advice
to the house of Lornth.” Sillek inclines his head ever so
slightly.

   Thrap. The knock is almost unheard over
the gentle plashing of the fountain, but Gethen immediately rises,
crosses the handwoven, patterned carpet, and opens the door.

   “Thank you, my dear.”
The master of the Groves stands aside as a young blond woman carries a
tray into the study. On the elaborately carved tray are two cups, a
covered pot with a spout, and a flat dish divided into two
compartments. The left contains carna nuts, the right small honeyed
rolls.

   Sillek stands, his eyes going from the
confectioneries to the bearer, whose shoulder-length blond hair is kept
off her face with a silver and black headband. Her eyes are deep green,
her skin the palest of golds, her nose straight and even, and just
strong enough not to balance the elfin chin and high cheekbones.

   “This is my middle daughter,
Zeldyan. Zeldyan, this is Lord Sillek.”

   Zeldyan sets the tray on the low table,
then rises and offers a deep, kneeling bow to Sillek, a bow that drops
the loose neckline of her low-cut tunic enough to reveal that her body
is as well proportioned as her face. “Your Grace, I am at
your service.” Her voice bears the hint of husky bells.

   “And I, at yours,”
Sillek responds, as he tries not to swallow too hard.

   “We will see you at supper,
Zeldyan.” Gethen smiles indulgently.

   She bows to them both, then steps back
without turning, easing her way from the study and closing the door
behind her. Gethen slides the bolt into place.

   “A lovely young woman, and with
great bearing and grace,” Sillek observes. “You
must be proud of her.” His fingers touch his beard briefly.

   “My daughters are a great
comfort,” Gethen answers as he reseats himself, “a
great comfort. And so is my only son, Fornal. You will meet him at
supper as well.”

   “I never heard but good of all
your offspring, ser.” Sillek has caught the slight emphasis
on the word “only,” but still places his own
marginal accent on the word “all.”

   “Your courtesy and concern
speak well of you, Lord Sillek.” Gethen leans forward and
pours the hot cider into the cups. “Your father was not just
Lord of Lornth, but a friend and a compatriot.” He turns the
tray and gestures to the cups, letting Sillek choose.

   Sillek takes the cup closest to him and
lifts it, chest-high, before answering. “A compatriot of my
sire is certainly someone to heed, and to pay great respect
to.” Then he sips the cider and replaces the cup on the tray.

   Gethen takes his cup. “The son
of a lord and a friend is also a lord and a friend.” He sips
and sets the cup beside Sillek*.

   Sillek glances toward the fountain, then
back to Gethen. “You offered my sire your best
judgment.”

   “And I would offer you the
same.”

   “You have heard of
the… difficulties I have faced recently, between certain
events on the Roof of the World and Lord
Ildyrom’s… adventures near Clynya?”

   “I have heard that certain
newcomers are said to be evil angels, and that they have great weapons
and a black mage with powers not seen since the time of the descent of
the demons.”

   “We do not know nearly
enough,” Sillek admits, “but what I do know is that
these so-called angels killed nearly threescore trained armsmen and
lost but three of their number. They have also destroyed several bands
of brigands who thought them easy prey. Unfortunately, they have also
caused others pain, others who may have judged-”

   “It often is not our judgment
that matters, Lord Sillek, but the perceptions of others,”
interrupts Gethen. “When the perception of the people is that
women are weak, those who fall to women are deemed even weaker and
unfit to lead.” The master of the Groves shrugs, sadly.
“And those who lead, especially rulers, must follow those
perceptions unless they wish to fight all those who now support
them.”

   “That is a harsh
judgment.”

   “Harsh, yes, but true, and that
is why I, who loved all my children, have but one son, for I cannot
endanger the others by flaunting dearly held beliefs.” Gethen
clears his throat.

   Sillek waits without speaking.

   “I understand you were
successful in reclaiming the grasslands with a rather minimal loss of
trained armsmen.” Gethen laughs. “Rather ingenious,
I think.”

   “I was fortunate,”
Sillek says, “but it ties up my chief armsman and one of my
strongest wizards in Clynya.”

   “Hmmmm. I see your problem. If
you attempt to secure the river, or Rulyarth… or send
another expedition to the Roof of the World…”

   Sillek nods.

   “Perhaps you should take the
battle to Ildyrom. It appears unlikely that the newcomers on the Roof
of the World would move against anyone in the near future. Nor will the
Suthyan traders.”

   “I had thought that, Ser
Gethen. Still, Ildyrom can muster twice the armsmen I can. The other
option would be to enlist support for a campaign to take Rulyarth,
enough support to wage such an effort without removing forces from
Clynya.”

   Gethen purses his lips, then tugs at his
chin. “That might work, provided those who supported you were
convinced that you would continue to work in their best interests. With
the access to the Northern Ocean, and the trade revenues, Lornth could
support a larger force of armsmen…”

   “I had thought that, ser, but
wished to consider your thoughts upon the matter.”

   “Hmmm… that does
bear consideration.” Gethen tugs at his chin again, then
reaches for his cider and sips. “You would need to make a
solid, a very solid, commitment.”

   “That is something that I would
be willing to do, ser, especially for the good of Lornth.”

   “The good of Lornth, ha! You
sound like your father. Beware, Sillek, of phrases like that. When a
ruler talks of the good of his land, he means his own good.”

   “The two are not opposites,
ser.”

   “True. And sometimes they are
the same. Tell me, what do you think of Zeldyan?”

   “At first blush, she is
attractive and courtly. I would know her better.”

   “Should you wish for the good
of Lornth, Sillek, I’d bet you will know her much
better.”

   “That is quite undoubtedly
true.” Sillek forces a smile. “For you offer good
advice.”

   “How good it is-you shall see,
but I offer you all the experience that I have, purchased dearly
through my mistakes.” The gray-haired man rises. “I
believe the time for supper nears, and Fornal and Zeldyan would like to
share in your company.”

   “And I in theirs, and yours,
and your lady’s.” Sillek stands and follows Gethen
into the twilight of the courtyard.

 

 

XXXVII

 

THE WEST WIND, as usual, was chill, chill enough that most of
those working on the Roof of the World had covered their arms, although
only Narliat, stacking grasses on the drying rack, actually wore a
jacket in the sunny afternoon of early fall.

   In the colder shadow of the tower on the
north side, as Huldran, Cessya, and Selitra worked to complete the
stonework on the east and south sides of the bathhouse, Nylan tried to
complete the bow he had failed three times with squinting through the
goggles, coaxing power out of the cells and through the powerhead. The
line of light and power flared almost green, and Nylan channeled the
reduced power around the curved form he held in the crude tongs,
smoothing the metal around the composite core, trying to shunt the
energy evenly around the composite without burning the iron-based alloy.

   With a last limited power bath, Nylan
flicked off the laser and slipped the protobow into the quench-but only
for a moment-before laying it out on the dented chunk of stone too
flawed to use for building.

   In the end, the shape differed clearly,
if subtly, from the sketch that Saryn had provided so many days
earlier. Still, a wide smile crossed his face. The bow had been harder,
much harder, than the blades.

   After a drink from the fired-clay mug, he
picked up the second crude bow frame, already roughed out, and began
inserting the composite core.

   But just before noon, he had created
three bows and dropped the energy levels to where he needed to replace
two of the ten cells before continuing.

   He also needed a rest, and something to
eat.

   After disassembling the laser and storing
the wand and powerhead, the engineer walked around the tower toward the
causeway and the main south gate to the tower.

   The south tower yard, below the causeway,
was getting more use, now that the tower was occupied, and the landers
had been moved again and set up more for storage, either to the west of
the tower or at the mouth of the canyon used for corraling the horses
and for stone. A low rough-stone wall was rising around the yard, built
by the simple expedient of asking the marines to carry small stones and
put them along the lines Nylan had scratched out. There were enough
stones around the tower, and the knee-height wall made a clear
demarcation between meadow and the tower yard.

   On the uphill side of the yard, near the
causeway into the tower, Ayrlyn and Saryn were working to improve their
cart, based on their ideas and what they had seen in practice in the
cart obtained from Skiodra. On the downhill side, beside the remaining
roof slates and building stones for the bathhouse, Gerlich and Jaseen
sparred with the heavy wooden blades.

   Nylan’s eyes moved south where,
on the trail-road down from the ridge, a thin, red-haired figure walked
between the two marines, and Fierral followed.

   Since Ryba wasn’t around, Nylan
waited until the four reached the base of the causeway. The marines
stopped, and Fierral stepped forward, her eyes surveying the area
before settling on Nylan.

   The local, so thin she seemed to be
little more than a child, barely reached Fierral’s shoulder,
although her tangled hair fell nearly to the middle of her back. Her
pale blue eyes darted from the marines to Nylan. She shrank away and
back toward the marines.

   “Ser,” Fierral began,
“this local just showed up and bowed and bowed. Selitra and
Rienadre don’t understand the local Anglorat, and I
don’t do that much better, but I think she’s asking
for refuge or something. Do you know where the marshal is?”

   “No one here will harm
you,” Nylan offered in his slow Anglorat, looking at the
painfully thin figure.

   The girl-woman looked down at the packed
dirt leading to the causeway, and eased back until she was pressed
against Rienadre’s olive-blacks.

   “She’s clearly not
fond of men. Better get the marshal,” Nylan suggested. He
turned toward the nearest of his tower workers, who had stopped on the
far side of the causeway by the main tower door. “Cessya? I
think Ryba’s checking the space for stables up in the
stone-cutting canyon. Will you get her?”

   “Yes, ser. Wouldn’t
mind a break from lugging stone.”

    “Well… you could
bring down a few of the larger fragments…”

   “Ser?”

   Nylan grinned.

   “Master Engineer…
someday… someday…”

   “Promises,
promises…”

   Cessya flushed as she turned.

   “You’re a dangerous
man, Engineer,” said Fierral.

   “Me?” Nylan laughed.

   When the force leader, or armsmaster,
just shook her head, Nylan’s eyes crossed the south tower
yard to where Ayrlyn was bent over the axle of the creaky cart. Saryn
stood on the other side.

   “Ayrlyn?”

   The redheaded healer lifted her head.
“Yes, Nylan? What great engineering expertise can you offer
to stop the creakiness of the wheels?”

   “Roller bearings, except I
can’t make them. Grease, otherwise, preferably from
Kyseen’s leavings or from animal fat.”

   “Grease?” Ayrlyn made
a face. “I need engineering, and all you have to offer is
grease? That was what you said yesterday.”

   “That’s what they
used for centuries. It’s smelly and messy, but I understand
it works.” Nylan shrugged and grinned. “Can you
give us a hand?”

   “With what?”

   The engineer motioned toward the local
girl-woman. “We have a local problem. I need you and
Narliat.”

   “That worthless
loafer?” Ayrlyn took a deep breath, then wiped her greasy
hands on a clump of grass. “He’s pretending to
stack grasses to dry. It’s the easiest job he can
find.”

   “I’ll get
him,” Saryn volunteered. “You talk to the local
kid, Ayrlyn. I still hate Anglorat.” The former second pilot,
limping yet, turned and headed for the grass-drying racks.

   Ayrlyn wiped her hands on the grass
again, then crossed the yard, where she stopped and looked at the small
redhead. After a time, the girl-woman looked back.

   “Who are you?” asked
Ayrlyn.

   “Hryessa.” The name
was so faint that all of the angels had to strain to catch it.

   “Where are you from?”

   “Lornth. The way was
hard.” Nylan nodded at the long scratches, and the scabs, on
the scrawny legs below the gray dresslike garment, and the purple and
green bruises on the left side of the face. A white line in front of
her left ear bore witness to a previous injury. “Why did you
come?”

   “Because…
because… I heard that you were angel-women, and that you had
defeated Lord Nessil. Even the mages of Lord Sillek fear
you.” Hryessa pursed her lips as though she feared having
said too much.

   “Some of that is
true,” answered Nylan. “We have defeated Lord
Nessil, and some of the bandits.”

   The small redhead stiffened and
swallowed, but her eyes finally met Nylan’s, although she
shivered as she spoke. “They say that you are a black mage
who devours souls and puts them into the stones of your
tower.”

   “Oh…
frig…”The expletive whispered from
Rienadre’s lips.

   “I do not devour souls. All of
us have built the tower,” Nylan explained.

   “You are too modest,”
interjected Narliat. “The mage made the tower possible, and
he used a knife of fire-”

   Hryessa shrank back until her back
pressed against Rienadre’s legs.

   Nylan wanted to smash Narliat for making
things harder, but Rienadre spoke before Nylan had figured out what to
say.

   “Easy, easy, kid,”
said the marine. “The engineer’s good
people.” Rienadre patted the girl-woman’s shoulder,
and the small redhead straightened, more in response to the tone than
the words she could not have understood.

   “He is a good mage,”
explained Ayrlyn in Old Anglorat. “His works have saved many,
and his tower will protect us all against the winter. It is only made
of stones and timber and metal-nothing more.”

   Nylan tried not to wince at being called
a mage. He was an engineer, and a poor excuse for one in a low-tech
culture. That was all he was. Except… as he thought that,
his head throbbed. Was he more than an engineer?

   “You wanted to see
us?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “I had… hoped, great
lady ..‘.” Her eyes fell to the clay underfoot.
“I had hoped to find a place.”

   “It will be a cold and long
winter,” Ayrlyn offered.

   “I do not care… you
are women.” Her eyes glistened, but the tears remained
unshed, and Hryessa stiffened, gathering herself together in pride.

   “You do not have to beg, or
humble yourself,” Nylan said softly. “The lady
Ayrlyn only wished you to know that winter on the Roof of the World
will not be easy.”

   “Is he really a man?”
asked Hryessa, directing his words at Ayrlyn.

   Nylan tried not to frown.

   “Yes,” answered
Ayrlyn with a smile. “He is very much a man, but he is an
angel, as are we all.”

   The sound of hoofbeats interrupted the
process, as Ryba guided the big roan to a halt by the causeway, letting
Cessya slide off first, then dismounted and handed the marine the
reins. The marine led the roan to the hitching rail.

   Ryba walked toward the group, halting
beside Nylan and looking at the small redhead. “You are
Hryessa,” she said slowly, “and you have come for
refuge. You are welcome.” With that, the marshal smiled.
“All such as you are welcome.”

   Nylan froze for a moment. How had Ryba
known the woman’s name?

   Hryessa bent her head, then knelt.
“Thank you, Angel of Heaven.”

   Ayrlyn’s and Nylan’s
eyes met, and Nylan realized that they shared the same feeling-one of
awe, a sense of experiencing something that transcended either of them.

   After a moment, Ayrlyn spoke.
“These others-they are also angels.”

   “But she is the
angel,” said Hryessa in a calm voice. “I have
seen.” She bowed again to Ryba.

   Ryba inclined her head to Ayrlyn.
“Would you take care of her? Get her washed and clean and
clothed? And you and Fierral need to work on sleeping arrangements and
blade training.”

   “We’ll take care of
it.” Ayrlyn nodded. After a moment, so did Fierral.

   Hryessa frowned, her eyes darting from
Ryba to Ayrlyn.

   “They’re going to
make sure you get bathed, clothed, and fed,” Nylan explained
in Old Anglorat. “Then, you will learn our ways, and they
will teach you the way of the blade.”

   “Teach me a blade, like an
armsman?”

   “Better, Hryessa,
better,” said Fierral in accented Anglo-rat.

   Again, Ayrlyn and Nylan exchanged
glances, and Nylan felt that they shared almost a sense of foreboding.

   Ryba nodded and turned back toward the
long hitching rail on the west side of the causeway, where her roan was
tied.

   “Let’s go,
Hryessa,” suggested Ayrlyn, leading the young woman toward
the tower.

   Nylan headed for the stream to wash,
wishing, again, that he had gotten around to finishing the bathhouse.

   After washing, he turned back toward the
tower and walked across the short causeway and into the great room. All
eight narrow windows to the great room were open to admit the cool
breeze. In four, the armaglass windows were pivoted and the shutters
folded back. In the other four, without the armaglass, the shutters
were just folded open.

   In time, Nylan hoped, they would be able
to afford glass for the remainder of the tower windows, but glass was a
lower priority than food or weapons, especially now that Ryba had
declared that the destiny of the guards of Westwind would be the double
blades.

   No wonder she had pressed him for the
forty blades he had made so far!

   He stepped toward the mostly filled
tables. The grass baskets were filled with loaves of fresh-baked bread.
Ayrlyn had finally brought back a yeast starter or whatever it was, and
Kyseen had only exploded dough all over the kitchen a handful of times
before learning how to mix flour, yeast, and water in making loaves
suited to the big, wood-burning ovens that everyone had thought were
too big when Nylan and Huldran had started laying bricks and mortaring
in the metal cooking surfaces and oven grate slots.

   Nylan sniffed the air, trying to
determine the composition of the steam rising from the two big pots-one
on each table. Some sort of stew, with local roots and greens tossed in.

   Jaseen turned toward Nylan as he passed
the end of the second table, and he noted the scratches on the
medtech’s forearms.

   “What happened?” he
asked.

   “Frigging pine trees. The
second and Kyseen discovered the cones have nuts, and you can roast
them or bake them or whatever. Only problem is that if you wait for the
cones to fall, the nuts are gone. Selitra and me, we’ve been
climbing pines. I slipped, and some of those needles are like
knives.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “So am I. Frigging nuts. Bet
they don’t even taste good.” She took a savage bite
from the chunk of bread she held, and Nylan walked toward the hearth
end of the first table.

   Ryba, as usual, sat at the head of the
table, and Nylan slipped onto the end of the bench to her left, the
space that was always left for him.

   As he sat, he noticed Ayrlyn leading
Hryessa toward the second table. The local woman now wore leather
trousers, boots, and a shirt somewhat large for her thin frame. Her
face had been washed, and her hair had been cut short, marine-style.

   As Hryessa looked down the table, her
eyes widened, and she swallowed. Ayrlyn said something, easing Hryessa
onto the bench and breaking off a large chunk of bread for her.

   “There’s our first
recruit,” noted Ryba.

   “She’s not that
big,” said Gerlich from the other side of the table.

   “Given time, she’ll
be as good or better than any except Istril or a few others.”
Ryba’s words were matter-of-fact. “We’ll
see more before long.”

   Beside Saryn, Relyn frowned, struggling
with a spoon in his left hand. “You will teach her the
blade?”

   “Of course. Why not?”

   Relyn opened his mouth, then looked at
Nylan. “Mage? What do you see when women have
blades?”

   “More men and women will get
killed-at first.” Nylan stood and spooned stew onto his
trencher. “After that, most of those who die will be arrogant
men.”

   “You sound displeased at
that,” Saryn offered.

   “I’m displeased any
time force is the only answer, and these days I’m displeased
a lot,” said the engineer as he reseated himself, forcing his
tone to be wry.

   The silver-haired Siret smiled shyly and
passed Nylan a basket of bread.

   “Thank you.” Nylan
handed the basket back after breaking off a chunk of the heavy bread.

   “You’re welcome,
ser.”

   “Would you pass me some, dear
Siret?” asked Berlis.

   “I certainly would, dear
Berlis. About the time you bed a demon-except you already have. So
enjoy it.” The deep green eyes flashed.

   “Talk about
bedding…”

   “If you want to bed a
blade,” suggested Siret, “just say another
word.”

   “Guards!” snapped
Ryba.

   Both women closed their mouths.

   “Thank you.” Ryba
turned to Nylan. “You were working on something different
this morning.”

   “Yes. I finally got the bow
thing worked out, I think.” Nylan turned to Gerlich.
“You might want to try it later this afternoon.”

   “Try what?” Gerlich
lifted his eyebrows.

   “A metal-composite
bow.”

   “I’ll try it, but I
finally made one out of a local fir-type tree that works pretty
well.”

   Nylan took a spoonful of stew. The meat
and sauce tasted more of salt and some spice than meat, but he was
hungry and shoveled in several mouthfuls, followed with a bite of
bread. The bread was better-tasting than the stew.

   Perhaps because of the outburst between
Berlis and Siret, the midday meal was relatively quiet, although
Gerlich had a long and low conversation with Narliat.

   After eating, Nylan went back to the
north yard and the next group of metal-composite bows.

   First, he laid out three more strips of
composite, and trimmed them, before rough-shaping the braces into the
bow outlines. After that, he turned off the power and rested for a
moment, letting the chill breeze off the western heights cool him and
dry his sweat-soaked hair.

   Behind him, the clink of trowels and
mortar and stone continued as the outside walls of the bathhouse rose.
The walls separating jakes, showers, and laundry could be installed
after the roofing.

   His break done, Nylan adjusted the
goggles over his eyes once more and eased power through the laser. He
could sense the raggedness of the powerhead, and he sweated even more
heavily as he strained not only to meld the metal around the composite
core, but to keep the energy flow from the powerhead constant.

   As he turned the curved shape in the
tongs, his breath became more and more uneven, but he managed to smooth
the last curves before shutting down the power and pushing the goggles
back.

   The quick quench was followed by his
slumping onto a stone to rest.

   Four bows. How many more could he coax
from the laser? Should he stop and use the life of the powerhead to do
the delicate stonework? He took a deep breath. He still had the other
powerhead.

   With a quick rest and a mugful of cold
water, he went back to work on the next bow. The powerhead wavered
more; Nylan strained more; and he took even more time gasping and
recuperating. Five bows rested on the stones.

   The third bow of the afternoon creased
his arms with lines of fire long before he finished, and left a
knifelike pounding inside his skull. As he started on the final
smoothing and melding, coaxing power out of the cells and through the
powerhead, the line of light and power stuttered more and more in green
bursts. Sweat poured from his forehead and around his goggles and even
inside them.

   His eyes burning, Nylan completed the
last smoothing and flicked off the power to the wand, then set it aside
and stepped toward the quench tub. He slipped on the clay, but caught
himself as he dipped the bow into the quench for its momentary bath
before laying it on the stone.

   He sat on the stone for a long time,
sipping water, eyes closed.

   “Are you all right,
ser?” Cessya finally asked.

   “I will be.” / hope,
he added mentally, considering I’ve created six bows that
might not even work, nearly destroyed the laser in the process, and
feel like the local mounts have tromped me into the stone.

   “Are you sure?”

   The engineer opened his eyes and nodded.

   “What are these?”
asked Cessya.

   “A new kind of bow-if they
work.”

   “Do you need some
help?”

   “Well… if you could
take the firin bank back to storage,” Nylan admitted.

   “Selitra! Give me a hand here.
We need to store the energy cells,” called Cessya.

   Nylan slowly disassembled the power
cables and the wand and powerhead while they carried the cells back
into the tower. Then he followed with the laser components and stored
them on the shelves above the power cells.

   When he returned, the three were back at
their stonework. Nylan extracted the woven bowstring from his pocket
and tried to string the first bow. It took him three tries, probably
because his arms were still aching.

   Then he had to go back into the tower and
find some arrows. Instead, he found Gerlich off the main hall.

   “Are you ready to test the
bow?” asked the engineer. “We’ll need
arrows and a target.”

   “Sure. Why not? I’ve
got an area where I’ve been practicing at the south end of
the meadow, near those scattered firs. We’ll see what your
toy will do, compared to the wooden one I worked out.”
Gerlich grinned, but the grin made Nylan uneasy.

   The two walked back to the north tower
yard, Gerlich with his own bow and quiver. The western wind felt good
as it ruffled through Nylan’s hair, and the engineer realized
he was still hot. He handed the composite bow to Gerlich.

   “Hmmm… a little
heavy, and probably too short.”

   Nylan looked at the curves.
“Too short?”

   “Well, Relyn says that a proper
bow should be chin high, about three and a half cubits local.”

   Nylan shrugged. His bows were not quite
chest high, but, easier, he suspected, to carry on horseback.

   “Let’s see about the
draw.” Gerlich took the bow and mock-nocked an arrow.
“Stiffer than it looks, but probably not strong enough for
the average armsman.” He grinned again. “Then,
there’s accuracy. Let’s go and see.”

   Nylan followed the long-legged former
weapons officer across the meadow to the half-dozen scattered firs.
Circular targets on ropes dangled from the limbs.

   “Those just twist and flap
unless you hit them square and hard,” said Gerlich.
“Good training.”

   The engineer watched as Gerlich took a
long arrow from the quiver, nocked it, and released the shaft.

   The shaft clunked against one of the
targets, spinning it, but the shaft did not hold and angled to the
ground. Gerlich released two more shafts. The same thing happened twice
more.

   He handed the bow back to Nylan.
“What you’ve got is accurate; it’s easy
to carry; and it’s probably all right for hunting.
I’d like something with more power, and I think most of the
locals would also. It’s good, but not in the class of your
blades.”

   Gerlich lifted and strung the big bow,
then sent a shaft whistling toward the target. Thunk! The target swung
in the light breeze, but the shaft held in place. “See the
difference?”

   Nylan nodded politely. One difference he
had noted was that Gerlich had not drawn the composite bow to its full
capability.

   “I’ll stick to my own
bow and my toothpick, if you don’t mind. Smaller weapons are
fine for marines.” Gerlich paused. “Is that all,
Engineer?”

   “That’s
all.”

   “I need to see about some game
to fill the pots.” Gerlich walked toward the trees,
reclaiming the arrows and checking them, and resetting the targets.
Then he raised an arm and walked briskly toward the canyon corral.

   Nylan followed more slowly, wondering
about both the bow and Gerlich. Why had Gerlich not drawn the bow
fully? Was he worried that the metal might splinter? Nylan would never
have given him a bow that he thought would fail.

   “Is that your new
bow?” Istril rode up to Nylan as he neared the causeway.
“Could I try it?”

   Nylan shrugged and handed it to her.
“Gerlich wasn’t impressed. He said it
wasn’t strong enough.”

   Istril laughed. “Brute strength
isn’t everything.” She tried the draw.
“It seems as heavy as his.” She looked at Nylan.
“We’ve got a target range up near the corral
canyon. Do you want to see how it works?”

   Nylan glanced to the west, where the sun
hung just above the peaks. He wasn’t going to get much more
done before supper anyway. “All right.”

   “Climb up behind me,”
invited the marine. “Benja can carry double for a short ways,
and it’s faster.”

   “You’re
sure?”

   “I’m sure.”

   Nylan clambered up awkwardly behind the
slim marine.

   “You’re going to have
to put an arm around me, ser, or you’ll get bounced off after
four steps.”

   Nylan flushed, but complied, and Istril
flicked the reins. Nylan still bounced, but Istril seemed welded to her
saddle, able even to open and close the crude gate without dismounting.
When they reached the corral area, Nylan slid down gratefully into the
shadows. “Thank you. I think I do better in the saddle than
behind it.”

   “Most people do,
ser.” Istril slid down and unsaddled Benja. “You
won’t mind if I rub her down?”

   “Of course not.” As
she worked on her mount, Nylan walked up the canyon to where he had cut
the stone. The brickwork for the stables was almost finished, and rough
fir timbers were stacked beside the walls. He ducked through what would
be the door and studied the interior.

   The rafters wouldn’t be that
far above his head, but the horses would have shelter at least. He
walked outside. Braaawwwk… awwwkkkk… awwkk. From
the smaller and more crudely bricked space where Nylan had tried to
quarry more stones, before finding the rock fractured, came the
sound-and the definite odor-of chickens.

   Nylan turned and headed downhill. Istril
had just patted Benja on the flank, and the mare whuffed, then walked
to the water trough.

   “The targets are up there, on
that side.” Istril strode briskly uphill, and Nylan followed,
marveling that the slender guard had so much energy so late in the day.
She paused. “There they are.”

   Three man-shaped figures-sculpted from
what seemed to be twisted fir limbs-stood before a backdrop of gray
that flowed from the canyon wall.

   “The gray stuff behind them is
sand and dirt. No sense in blunting arrowheads.” Istril
nocked a shaft with a fluid motion and released it.

   Whunk! The shaft vibrated in the target,
right where an armsman’s heart would have been.
“Nice!” she exclaimed. “Gerlich said it
wasn’t strong enough.”

   “Friggin‘ idiot.
Beggin’ your pardon, ser, but he is.” Istril nocked
and released a second shaft, which appeared beside the first.
“Sweet weapon, ser, and there’s plenty of pull here.

   I’ll show you. Might cost me a
shaft, but we might as well find out.“

   The marine walked toward the target on
the far right. When she reached it, she bent down and pulled a battered
breastplate from behind the target, fastening it in place. Then she
walked back to Nylan.

   “We’ll see how it
does against the local armor.”

   “Can you spare a
shaft?”

   “I’d rather lose a
shaft than my neck.” Istril laughed, a warm sound.
“It’s better to find out now instead of in a
fight.” She set her feet, nocked a third shaft, and let it
fly.

   A dull clunk followed the impact, but the
shaft slammed through the metal and held. At the sound, Benja barely
looked up from where she chewed off a few clumps of mostly brown grass.

   “I don’t know what
the big idiot’s talking about.” Istril shook her
head. “This is smaller than his monster. It’s
easier to carry. It aims better, and it goes through armor. What else
do you need?”

   “The reputation for carrying
the biggest bow and blade?” suggested Nylan.

   Istril laughed again. Then her face
cleared. “This is a killer weapon, ser. Any of the marines-I
guess we’re guards, now-any of us would carry this over
anything else I’ve seen or used. Do you have any
more?”

   “Five others, but I
don’t have strings for them.”

   “Five? That’s a good
start.”

   “I don’t know how
long the laser will last,” Nylan explained, “and I
didn’t want to make any more unless they were good.”

   “Good? With this and your
blades, the locals won’t stand a chance.”

   “Please don’t humor
me, Istril,” Nylan asked.

   “I’m not humoring
you, ser. I wouldn’t do that. We’re talking our
necks and lives.”

   “I didn’t
mean-”

   “I know.” Istril
extended the bow.

   “You can keep it. I
wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to use it.”

   The faint sound of the triangle gong
announced the evening meal.

   “Thank you, ser. We’d
better be headed down.”

   They walked in silence down to the tower,
ducking through the fence poles and following the path to the causeway.

   “Bread smells good,”
said Istril as Nylan swung open the heavy front door to the tower.

   “Kyseen does that
well.”

   “I think Kadran’s
been helping since her shoulder was torn up.”

   “That might explain
it.” Nylan gave a half laugh.

   Istril set the bow by the stairs, and
they walked to the tables.

   “Testing the
engineer’s bow?” asked Gerlich politely.

   Ryba’s eyes flicked to Nylan.
“You forged a bow?”

   “Finally,” the
engineer admitted. “It’s been difficult.”

   “I hope you didn’t
spend too much power on it,” Gerlich added from his seat in
the middle of the first table. Selitra sat beside him.

   “You have to spend power to
create anything,” pointed out Nylan. “We need good
longer-range weapons.”

   “Your blades are more
effective,” countered Gerlich.

   “I don’t think
so,” said Istril firmly. “I tested the bow, and
it’s perfect for a mounted guard.”

   “For a guard, perhaps, but I
can put more power into the great bow,” answered Gerlich.

   “I’m sure you
can,” responded Istril politely. “But the
engineer’s bow works much better for a mounted guard, and
I’m more than glad to use it. So will the others,
I’m sure, since it’s much easier to carry on
horseback, and far more accurate than that monster you carry.”

   “It doesn’t have the
pull.” Gerlich’s voice carried an edge.

   Ryba’s eyes flicked between the
silver-haired guard and the dark-haired man.

   “It has enough power to go
through a breastplate at combat range and that should be enough for
anyone,” snapped Istril.

   “I thought we were talking true
long-range weapons…”

   “Enough,” said Ryba
quietly. “The engineer’s weapons will be sung of
long after we are all gone from Westwind. So will your great bow,
Gerlich. There’s room for both in history. It’s
been a long day, and we don’t need an argument at dinner. In
fact, we don’t need arguments at all. We need to work
together to get through the coming winter.”

   Nylan slipped into his seat quietly,
glancing at the scattering of ashes in the cold hearth. “No
fire?”

   “It’s not that cold
yet, and it takes work to saw and split logs, even the dry
deadwood,” said Ayrlyn from across the table. Beside her, on
the side closest to Ryba, sat Hryessa. Relyn sat on the other side.

   “You’re wearing a
jacket.”

   “I’m not a
Sybran,” conceded the redheaded healer.
“You’re half Sybran, at least.”

   Nylan grinned and shook his head.
“The wrong half, probably.”

   Dinner consisted of long strips of meat,
clearly beaten into tenderness, and spiced with the hot dried peppers
that Kyseen had found somewhere, then covered with an even hotter
red-brown sauce. With it were lumpy noodles, some almost as thick as
small dumplings, and some form of sliced root.

   Nylan forced himself to take several
circular root slices, but he ladled the sauce over everything except
the bread. The bread seemed to get better.

   The only beverage was water. They had a
choice of bitter tea in the morning and water at night. The engineer
wondered how long it would be before they might have something else.

   Hryessa looked blankly at the barely
smoothed wood of the tabletop while conversation continued. As Nylan
started to eat, the local woman helped herself to another hefty portion
of meat and dumpling noodles. She ate slowly, as though she were full,
but could not believe that she would eat the next day.

   Nylan refrained from shaking his head and
took a second bite. By the time he had swallowed the mouthful of meat
and dumplings, the sweat had beaded up on his forehead.

   He drained his mug and refilled it, then
blotted his forehead.

   “The bread works better than
the water,” said Ryba dryly.

   Across the end of the table, Ayrlyn
nodded.

   He took a mouthful and chewed. They were
right. The burning faded, and he took another mouthful. After more
bread and some water, he asked, “Is this the latest way for
Kyseen to stop complaints about the food? How can you complain if
it’s too hot to taste?”

   “I think it’s
good,” offered Gerlich.

   “He never had any taste to
begin with,” suggested Ayrlyn in a whisper.

   “He still
doesn’t,” muttered Nylan, adding more loudly,
“You always liked things hot and direct.”

   A wave of laughter rolled down the table.
Hryessa ignored the humor; Relyn frowned slightly, still struggling to
eat with his left hand; and Nylan reminded himself that he had wanted
to craft something for Relyn’s stump.

   “Better than cold and
indirect,” countered Gerlich.

   Only a few chuckles greeted his remark,
then small talk resumed around the two tables, especially at the end
away from the hearth where Huldran and Cessya sat.

   Nylan overheard a few of the phrases.

   “… bathing when
there’s ice on the walls…”

   “… better than
stinking…”

   “… cares? No one but
the engineer, and you know how dangerous that’d
be…”

   Nylan glanced toward the corner of the
first table where Narliat sat beside Denalle, who was attempting to
practice her Anglorat on the armsman. Narliat’s face was
bland, although Nylan sensed the man was fighting boredom.

   Nylan concentrated on finishing his meal,
although he required two more large chunks of bread to get him through
the last of the spiced meat.

   “No sweets?” asked
Istril, her voice rising above the murmurs around the tables.

   “What kind of
sweets?” replied Gerlich.

   “Not your kind, Weapons.
You’re as direct as that crowbar you carry. That’s
hard on a woman.” Istril stood and walked toward the steps to
reclaim the composite bow.

   Relyn, sitting beside Ayrlyn, watched the
slender marine. He pursed his lips, opened his mouth, then closed it.
“How… ? No man would accept that in
Lornth.”

   “This isn’t Lornth,
Relyn,” said Ayrlyn. “This is Westwind, and the
women make the rules. Gerlich crossed the marshal once; she took him
apart. She used her bare hands and feet to kill a marine who crossed
her.”

   The young noble glanced at Nylan.
“What about you, Mage?”

   “Gerlich is better at the
martial valors than I am, I suspect.”

   “You’re better with a
blade,” said Ryba, “for all of his words about his
great sword.”

   Gerlich’s eyes hardened, but he
turned and smiled to Selitra, then rose and bowed to Ryba.
“It has been a long day, Ryba, and we will be hunting early
tomorrow.”

   Ryba returned the gesture with one even
more curt. “May you sleep well.”

   Gerlich smiled, and Nylan tried not to
frown. He liked the man less and less as the seasons passed.

   “You are a strange one,
Mage,” said Relyn slowly. “You are better with a
blade than most, yet you dislike using it. You can wield the fire of
order, and yet you defer to others.”

   “Too much killing leaves me
unable to function very well.”

   “But you are good at
it.”

   “Unfortunately,”
Nylan said. “Unfortunately.”

   Later, in the darkness, Nylan and Ryba
walked up from the great hall, slowly, the four sets of steps that led
to their space on the sixth level.

   “Some nights, I get so
tired,” said Nylan. “It’s easier to chop
wood and do heavy labor than to use the laser these days.
It’s beginning to fail.”

   “Can you do any more of the
bows?”

   “I did six. I might be able to
do some more, but I haven’t cut all the stone troughs for the
bathhouse and showers. I did get the heater sections done.”

   “A heater?” asked
Ryba.

   “It’s not really a
water heater, but I figured that I could put a storage tank with one
side on the back of the chimney for the heating stove, because not many
people will bathe in ice water in a room without heat. It probably
won’t get the water really hot, but it might make it
bearable, and the back stone wall is strong enough to hold a small
tank.”

   “You’re
amazing.”

   He shrugged in the gloom of the
third-level landing, almost embarrassed. “I just try to make
things work.”

   “You won’t always be
able to, Nylan.”

   “Probably not, but I have to
try.”

   “I know.” She reached
out and squeezed his hand, briefly, then started up the steps again.

   When they reached the top level, Nylan
paused. Framed in the right-hand window, the unglazed one, was Freyja,
the ice-needle peak faintly luminescent under the clear stars and the
black-purple sky. Nylan studied the ice, marveling at the
knife-sharpness of the mountain.

   Ryba kicked off her boots and eased out
of the shipsuit. Nylan turned and swallowed. Lately, Ryba had been
distant, oh - so - distant. He just looked.

   “You don’t just have
to look,” she said in a low voice. “Today is all
that is certain.”

   He took a step forward, and so did Ryba,
and her fingers were deft on the closures of his tattered shipsuit.

   “You need leathers,”
she whispered before her lips touched his. “Leathers fit for
the greatest engineer.”

   “I’m not-”

   “Hush… we need what
is certain.”

   Nylan agreed with that as his arms went
around her satin-skinned form, still slender, with only the slightest
rounding in her waist, the slightest hint of greater fullness in her
breasts.

   Later, much later, as they lay on the
joined couches that they still shared, Nylan held her hand and looked
at Freyja, wondering if the peak had a fiery center like Ryba.

   “I’ll be
back,” Ryba whispered as she sat up and pulled her shipsuit
over her naked form. She padded down the stairs barefoot, after picking
up an object Nylan could not make out, night vision or not, from
beneath the couch.

   As the cold breeze sifted through the
open windows- both the single window with the armaglass and the one
with shutters alone were open-the engineer pulled the thin blanket up
to his chest, and waited… and waited.

   His eyes had closed when he heard bare
feet, and he turned and asked sleepily, “What took so
long?”

   “I ran into Istril, and she
wanted something,” Ryba said. “I’m never
off-duty anymore, it seems. I was able to help her, but it took a bit
longer than I’d thought. She thinks a lot of you.”

   “She’s a good
person,” Nylan said, stifling a yawn and reaching out to
touch Ryba’s silken skin, skin so smooth that no one would
have believed that it belonged to an avenging angel, to the angel.

   “Yes. All of the marines are
good. That’s one reason why I do what I do.” Ryba
let Nylan move to her, but the engineer felt the reserve there, the
holding back that seemed so often present, even at the most intimate
times.

   And he held back a sigh, only agreeing
with her words. “They all are good, and I do the best I
can.”

   “I know.” Those two
words were softer, much softer, and sadder. “I
know.” But she said nothing more as they lay there in the
cool night that foreshadowed a far, far colder winter-as they lay there
and Ryba shuddered once, twice, and was silent.

   Hryessa’s words ran through
Nylan’s mind, again and again. “But she is the
angel.”

   Darkness, what had they begun? Where
would it end?

 

 

XXXVIII

 

SILLEK. GESTURES TO the chair closest to the broadleaf fern
that screens the pair of wooden armchairs from the remainder of the
courtyard and from Zeldyan’s family and retainers.

   “You are most kind, Lord
Sillek,” murmurs Zeldyan as she sits, leaning forward, the
husky bell-like tones of her voice just loud enough to be heard over
the splashing of the fountain.

   “No,” says Sillek.
“I am not kind. I am fortunate. You are intelligent and
beautiful, and…” He shrugs, not wishing to voice
what he thinks. Despite the apparently secluded setting of the chairs
and low table between them, he understands that all he says could be
returned to Gethen.

   “Your words are kind.”

   “I try to make my actions
kind,” he answers as he seats himself and turns in the chair
to face her directly.

   “Necessity does not always
permit kindness.” The blond looks at Sillek directly for the
first time. “Necessity may be kind to you.”

   “You speak honestly, lady, as
though I were a duty. There is someone else who has courted
you?”

   Zeldyan laughs. “Many have paid
court, but none, I think, to me. Rather they have courted my father
through me.”

   “I would like to say that I am
sorry.”

   “You are more honest than most,
and more comely.” Her hand touches the silver and black
hairband briefly, and a sad smile plays across her lips.
“Have you not courted others?”

   “I am afraid you have the
advantage on me, lady, for I have neither courted, nor been
courted-until now.”

   “Why might that be?”
She leans forward ever so slightly.

   “Because”-he
shrugs-“I did not wish to be forced into a union of
necessity.” He laughs once, not trying to hide the slightly
bitter undertone.

   “You are too honest to be a
lord, ser. For that, I fear you will pay dearly.”
Zeldyan’s tone is sprightly.

   “Perhaps you could help
me.”

   “To be dishonest?”
She raises her eyebrows.

   “Only if dishonesty is to learn
to love honestly.”

   “You drive a hard bargain, Ser
Sillek.” Her eyes drop toward the polished brown stone tiles
of the courtyard.

   Sillek reaches out and takes her right
hand in his left. “Hard it may be, Zeldyan, but honest, and I
hope you will understand that is what I would give you.”
Another short and bitter laugh follows, then several moments of
silence. “I would not deceive you with flowery words, though
you are beautiful and know that you are. But comeliness and beauty
vanish quickly enough in our hard world, especially when courted for
the wrong reasons.”

   “You are far too honest,
Sillek. Far too honest. Honesty is dangerous to a ruler.”

   “It is, but to be less than
honest is often more dangerous.” Sillek frowns, then pauses.
“Is it so evil to try to be honest with the lady I wish to
join?”

   “You might ask her if that is
her wish.”

   The Lord of Lornth takes a deep breath.
“I did not ask, not because I do not care, but because I had
thought it was not your wish. I have appeared in your life from
nowhere, and there must be many who have known and loved both your
visage and your soul.” He laughs softly. “I had not
meant to be poetic, here, but my tongue betrayed me.”

   Zeldyan’s eyes moisten for an
instant, but only for an instant, before she turns her head toward the
broadleaf fern.

   Sillek waits, the lack of words
punctuated by the splashing of the fountain. His eyes flick toward the
end of the courtyard where he knows Gethen and Fornal make small talk
about crops and hunting while they wait, and where, in another room,
the lady Erenthla also waits.

   When Zeldyan faces Sillek again, her face
is calm. “What would say your lady mother?”

   “Nothing.” Sillek
wets his lips. “Her thoughts are yet another thing. A fine
match, she would think. She would say to me that the Lord of Gethen
Groves has lands, and his support will strengthen Lornth and your
patrimony, Sillek.”

   “You court strangely, My
Lord.”

   “So I do. Say also that I court
honestly.” He offers her a head bow. “Would you be
my consort, lady?”

   “Yes. And I will say more,
Lord. Your honesty is welcome. May it always be so.” Zeldyan
bows her head in return, then smiles ironically. “Would you
wish my company when you deliver my consent to my father?”

   Sillek stands. “I would not
press, but I had thought we both might speak with your father, and then
with your mother.”

   “She would like that.”

   Sillek extends his hand, and Zeldyan
takes it, though she scarcely needs it to aid her from the chair. Their
hands remain together as they walk past the fountain and back toward
the far end of the courtyard.

 

 

XXXIX

 

NYLAN USED THE tongs to swing the rough bow frame into the
focal point of the laser, struggling to keep the power flows smooth and
still shape the metal around the composite core.

   On the stones he used for cooling after
the quench lay a circular cuplike device with a blunt-very blunt-hook
and two bows-most of a morning’s work. He hoped the metal cup
and hook would serve as an adequate artificial hand for Relyn; he was
tired of the veiled references to one-armed men.

   His eyes went back to the two bows. All
told, the engineer had made twelve over the eight-day before, each a
struggle sandwiched between limited stone-cutting and building the
heating stove for the bathhouse, and welding the two laundry tubs.
Ellysia, relegated to laundry as a collateral duty because her obvious
and early pregnancy had limited her riding, had immediately
commandeered both. According to what Nylan had overheard, though, she
refused to launder anything of Gerlich’s.

   Nylan permitted himself a smile at that,
before he forced his concentration back to controlling the laser, and
smoothing the metal around the cormclit composite core of what would be
another bow.

   As the tip of greenish light flowed
toward the end of the bow, the energy flows from the powerhead
fluctuated more and more wildly, and Nylan staggered where he stood,
trying to hold the last focal point.

   Pphssttt! Even before the faint sizzling
faded into silence, Nylan could tell from the collapse of the flux
fields around the laser focal points that the powerhead had failed. The
engineer slumped. The other cutting powerhead was in little better
shape. The weapons head, although scarcely used, would squander power,
depleting the cells in a fraction of a morning-without accomplishing
much, except destroying whatever it was focused on.

   The last powerhead might last long enough
to finish another handful of the composite bows.

   He frowned. First, he needed to cut the
shower knife plates. Then, if the second powerhead lasted that long, he
could go back to the bows. At least, the black tower was finished. That
is, the basics were-roof, floors, the hearth, chimneys, the stove and
the furnace itself, and the water system from the tower wall to the
lower-level cistern.

   Everyone had needed something. Ryba had
wanted weapons; everyone had needed shelter; the horses had needed
stables; the tower had needed some windows… the list had
seemed endless.

   He disconnected the powerhead from the
wand, glancing toward the uncompleted bathhouse behind him. Huldran,
Cessya, and the others were raising the roof timbers on the stables.

   The single clang of the triangle
announced the noon meal, and Nylan took the artificial hand and the
broken power-head. He dropped off the powerhead in the tower, then
found Relyn by the causeway. The mahogany-haired man sat on the stones
watching Fierral and Jaseen spar, his eyes narrow.

   “Greetings, Mage.”

   “Greetings. I brought you
something.” Nylan extended the device.

   “What… might that
be?”

   “What I promised the other
evening when I measured your arm.” The engineer extended the
artificial hand and mounting cup, measured to fit over the healing
stump.

   “It might be better than
nothing, ser.” Relyn took it in his good left hand.

   Nylan felt himself growing angry, and the
darkness rising within him, but he bit back the personal anger and
chose his words carefully before he spoke. “It is no evil to
lose, either a battle or a hand, to someone who is better. It is a
great evil to refuse to struggle against your losses. I offer you a
tool to help in that struggle. Are you too proud to use that tool? Does
an armsman refuse a blade when his is broken?”

   Rather than say more, Nylan turned and
left. He was one of the first at table for the midday meal, rather than
the last, but he refused even to look in Relyn’s direction.

   After he ate, Nylan excused himself and
trudged back to the north side of the tower, where he set up the laser
with the remaining powerhead.

   On the other side of the tower, in the
fields, the field crew-Selitra, Siret, Ellysia, and Berlis, who still
complained about her thigh wound-were gathering the beans, and digging
up some of the bluish high-altitude potatoes. The potatoes that
didn’t seem ready could wait, but with the threat of light
frosts growing heavier, the last of the aboveground produce had to come
in.

   Between the carcasses dragged in by
Gerlich and salted or dried, and the wild roots, and crops, and the
barrels of assorted flours gotten in trading, Westwind might get
through the winter-on tight rations. The food concentrates were almost
gone, far faster than Ryba or Nylan had anticipated.

   Clang! Clang! The triangle sounded twice.

   Nylan looked up from reconnecting the
second power-head as Istril led four other riders uphill toward the
ridge. Another set of would-be crop raiders, no doubt. There
wasn’t the swirl of the white chaos-feel on the local net
that happened when large numbers of armsmen showed up. Why his senses
worked that way, he didn’t know, only that they did.

   Since they didn’t seem to need
him, he turned his attention back to the work at hand. With the goggles
in place, he studied the sheets of metal taken from lander three and
the lines chalked on them.

   Finally, he triggered the laser and began
to cut the knife plates, quickly and without much smoothing. All eight
went quickly, and he took a deep breath when the long-handled plates
were completed. The rest of the “valves” could be
worked out with local materials, if necessary.

   He moved the leftover metal and laid out
the three rough bow forms and the three composite cores he had already
cut.

   Maybe… maybe… the
laser would last through all three.

   At the sound of hooves, Nylan looked up.
Istril led a mount, over which was a body. So did two of the marines
who followed. Seven mounts, and three bows in all, and no obvious
casualties for the marines. Nylan took a deep breath, then noticed that
Istril had turned toward him.

   She reined up well short of the laser.

   Nylan checked the power and pushed back
the goggles. “No casualties?”

   “No.” She smiled
broadly. “The bows work well. Very well.” Then the
smile became a grin. “Gerlich doesn’t know what the
frig he’s talking about. He couldn’t have sent an
arrow as far as your bows, even with that monster of his.
It’s technique.”

   Nylan nodded. “With most
things, it’s technique.”

   “The bows may save a lot more
lives than the blades, ser. Ours, anyway, and that’s what
we’re worried about.” She paused, then flicked the
reins. “We need to take care of these.”

   Nylan offered her a vague salute, watched
as she turned her mount, then lowered the goggles.

   The energy flows tumbled through the
powerhead like green rapids, and Nylan felt he was using all his energy
just to smooth them, and it took even more to begin to shape the rough
metal bow frame around the composite.

   Once more, his face was a river of sweat
as he struggled with the laser and the shaping. And once more, he was
drained, arms lined with internal fire and legs shaking, by the time he
finished the bow and quenched it.

   The powerhead was failing, yet, after
what Istril had told him, the bows might be the most important thing he
could make before the laser system collapsed. So he rested on the
cracked stone he used as a seat, trying to catch his breath and regain
his strength before beginning the next bow.

   “So… the mage is
working hard.” Relyn ambled into the north tower yard. He
carried Nylan’s creation in his left hand.

   “The mage always works
hard.” Nylan wiped his damp forehead.

   “You sweat like a pig. Yet I
see no weapons, no hammers, no hot coals.”

   “This is harder than
that.”

   “What? You work the fires of
the angels’ hell?”

   Nylan stood and walked toward the firin
cell bank and the laser wand. “Watch. Then you can
decide.”

   Relyn’s lips tightened, but he
said nothing as Nylan lowered the goggles. The engineer inserted the
composite strip in the groove of the bow frame, then picked up both
with the tongs and the laser wand with his right hand.

   Again, the greenish light flickered, and
Nylan wrestled with the fluctuating power levels as he molded metal
around composite. Sweat streamed into and around his goggles. His arms
and eyes burned, and his legs felt rubbery even before he quenched the
bow and set it aside.

   He pushed back the goggles and blotted
his face dry, but his eyes still burned from strain and the salt of his
sweat. His tattered uniform was soaked. For a few moments, he just sat
there, doubting whether the powerhead would last through another bow.

   “Worse than the fires of the
angels’ hell,” Relyn finally offered.

   The words startled Nylan since, with all
the concentration required, he had forgotten that the young noble had
been watching.

   “It’s hard, but I
wouldn’t know about the angels’ hell.
I’ve only seen the white mirror towers of the
demons.”

   “You look like men and women,
but you are not.” Relyn shook his head. “You bend
the order force around chaos and form metal like a smith, and the fire
you use is hotter than a smith’s. Yet all the other angels
say none but you can wield that green flame.”

   “I won’t be able to
do that much longer. The flamemaker is failing,” Nylan
conceded.

   “That is why you work so
hard?”

   The engineer nodded.

   Finally, Relyn bowed his head.
“I have not been gracious, or noble. This… it is a
work of art, and you were generous to create it for me, especially when
you have so little of the flame left. And you put some of your soul in
it. That I can see. I will use it, as I can, but I would not wear it
after my last words when we ate-or yours.”

   Nylan understood that the statement was
as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get, and that the words
had cost the younger man a great deal.

   “It is yours to use.”
Nylan paused. “I only ask that you use it for good, not
evil.”

   Relyn lifted his eyes.
“You.have not…”

   “No. I would not
compel,” Nylan said, mentally adding, Even if I knew how,
which I don’t. “The choice is yours. I
don’t believe in forcing choices. People resent that, and
their resentment colors their actions and their decisions.”

   Relyn studied the smooth metal.
“Now… I must think.”

   “About what?”

   The younger man gave Nylan a crooked
smile. “About what I have seen and what I must do.”

    “I wouldn’t stay
here,” Nylan said bluntly.

   “But you do.”

   “That’s true, but
I’m an angel. You aren’t.” As he spoke,
Nylan found himself thinking that he was only half angel, assuming pure
Sybran equated to pure angel.

   “Even angels have choices,
Mage.” Relyn lifted his remaining hand, then turned and
walked uphill toward the ridge.

   “What was that
about?” Nylan asked himself, walking back to the bucket by
the wall. He drank and splashed his face before returning to the last
bow.

   He shouldn’t have worried about
the last bow. The entire powerhead fused solid when he triggered the
power. He looked at the day’s work-five bows. Seventeen bows
in all. Not enough, but better than none.

   He began disassembling the laser, and he
had returned all the components, useless or not, to the tower, all
except the bank of firin cells and the five bows, when Ryba rode down
from the ridge and reined up.

   “Both the cutting heads for the
laser are shot,” Nylan explained.
“They’re totally fused.”

   “What were you doing?”

   “It doesn’t matter.
The total cumulative flow was the issue. The heads are only made to
last so long. I got five more bows done.”

   “That’s almost
enough. Can you modify the weapons head?” asked Ryba, almost
idly, leaning forward on the roan, her fingers touching the staff of
the composite bow Nylan had given her-one of his better efforts.

   “Not really. It’s
designed for maximum power disbursement in minimum
time-that’s a weapon configuration.” The engineer
unfolded the carrying handle on the right side of the firin cell frame.

   “What about your…
abilities?”

   “I can channel the flows, shape
them, but I can’t hold back that kind of power flow. With the
industrial heads, they’re designed to be choked down, except
it’s not choked. They draw power at any
level…” Nylan shrugged. Explaining how things felt
with a new ability he couldn’t adequately describe even to
himself was difficult. He unfolded the other carrying handle.

   “How much power do we have
left?”

   “Fifty percent on one bank of
cells. The emergency generator might last long enough to get that bank
to full power. Then again, it could quit any time. The bearings are
nearly shot.”

   “That could power the weapons
laser, couldn’t it?” Ryba smiled again, almost
cruelly.

   “For a while. The cells might
hold for a year.”

   Ryba straightened in the saddle.
“You’ve done well, Nylan. The great smith and
engineer. You built a tower, a bathhouse, stables, figured out how to
heat them-and still left the weapons laser. I’ll see you at
dinner.”

   As she rode off, with the way she spoke,
he almost wished he hadn’t accomplished so much.

 

 

XL

 

“SER GETHEN OF the Groves!” announces the
young armsman - in - training, “accompanied by Lady Erenthla,
and Zeldyan, of the Groves of Gethen.”

   The single horn plays a flourish, and
Sillek, concealing a wince because the horn player is off-key, hopes
that Gethen is not terribly musical.

   Through the opening doors of the great
hall step the three, walking up the green carpet toward the dais where
Sillek and his mother stand. The lady Ellindyja remains slightly back
and to his right, but close enough that Sillek can read her face.

   In the hall are nearly threescore
landowners and others of prominence in Lornth, there to witness the
formal betrothal.

   Zeldyan, eyes downcast, walks behind her
father and side by side with her mother.

   “She’ll do for a
consort,” opines the lady Ellindyja. “Good lands,
good blood, good manners, and good looks. And Ser Gethen will back you
on the campaign to take Rulyarth?”

   “That was a deciding factor in
announcing the betrothal,” Sillek lies. “But I
would have no more speech on that. The fewer who know, the
better.”

   “I will keep silent, but I
rather doubt that her father’s support was the deciding
point,” suggests Lady Ellindyja. “She took your
fancy, and you’ll tell me that her father will support you to
soothe me.”

   “I felt him out before I ever
saw Zeldyan.”

   “If he knew you cared, he would
have driven a harder bargain.”

   “He only has one
son,” Sillek says quietly, his lips barely moving and his
face impassive as Gethen and Zeldyan approach.

   The lady Ellindyja shrugs. “All
ventures are a gamble. Had young Relyn taken back the Roof of the
World, Ser Gethen would have doubled his lands and influence. Now he
must support you more. Sometimes luck is as important as
skill.”

   “Your advice was the deciding
factor, Mother dear,” whispers Sillek just before he steps
down off the dais platform to greet Gethen.

   Gethen inclines his head.

   Sillek offers a half bow.
“Welcome to Lornth, Ser Gethen.” He turns to
Erenthla. “And to you, lady.” His last bow, and his
deepest, goes to Gethen’s daughter. “And to you,
Zeldyan. I am honored.”

   Although Zeldyan’s face
displays a polite smile, a tinge of a flush colors her cheeks as she
curtseys in response.

   “Not so honored as we
are,” responds Gethen formally, and loudly enough so that
those even in the back of the hall can hear.

   “You do offer me honor in
entrusting your daughter into our family and care, and I assure you
that she will in turn be honored and cherished,” responds
Sillek, turning his eyes from the father to the daughter.

   Both Gethen and Ellindyja frown
momentarily at the words “and cherished,” while the
white-haired Erenthla smiles briefly.

   Zeldyan momentarily raises her eyes to
Sillek, and they sparkle, before she drops them so quickly that not
even Ellindyja sees.

   “As a pledge of my
trust,” Sillek continues, “I offer you the seal
ring of a counselor of Lornth.”

   A dark-haired youth, an armsman - to -
be, steps forward with a small green pillow on which rests the golden
ring.

   “It is a token of my
faith.” Sillek’s eyes are clear and direct as he
faces Gethen, so direct that the older man pauses momentarily.

   “You do me, and my daughter,
great honor, Lord Sillek.”

   “Only your due, ser. And
hers.”

   This time, at the untraditional reference
to Zeldyan, Gethen does not frown, although the lady Ellindyja swallows.

   A second young armsman approaches, with
another pillow on which are two matching silver rings, each with a
square emerald set in the center of a miniature seal of Lornth.

   Sillek takes the smaller ring.
“With this ring, I ask for your hand, lady, and with it, I
pledge both my hand and my honor.”

   She extends her left hand, and Sillek
slides the ring in place, adding quietly, “And my
devotion.”

   Then it is Zeldyan’s turn, and
her voice is cool and firm, without bells, without brassiness, without
softness. She lifts the larger ring, and Sillek extends his hand.
“With this ring, I give you my hand, and accept your hand and
your honor.” As she slips the ring in place, her fingers
tighten around his hand briefly, and she adds, “And give you
the respect you deserve.”

   Gethen’s eyes widen but
fractionally, and then they cross with the lady Ellindyja’s.

   I Sillek’s and
Zeldyan’s hands remain locked for several instants, before
Sillek finally says, loudly enough for all in the hall to hear,
“Two hands promised in honor.”

    “Two hands promised in
honor!” the onlookers chorus.

   Sillek steps onto the dais and draws
Zeldyan up beside him. After a moment, he gestures, and Gethen and
Erenthla join them. All smile except the lady Ellindyja.

 

 

XLI

 

THE DULL RUMBLE of thunder echoed across the Roof of the
World, and a line of rain slashed at Tower Black. Water dribbled
through the closed shutters of the great room, but not through the
armaglass windows. The coals left from the morning fire imparted a
residual warmth… and some smokiness, because Nylan had added
the hearth after the walls had been started.

   Nylan sipped the cup of leaf tea slowly,
lingering past breakfast. With his head still aching two days after the
laser had failed, he wondered if the bows had killed the power-heads
earlier than necessary. He massaged his neck again and looked around
the empty room. The guards had left the table and were working, either
in the lower level of the tower, or in the stables, out of the cold
rain that had fallen for two days straight.

   The inside tower drains were working, at
least, and water seemed to be filling the outfall, from what he could
see out the front door. Nylan smiled, but the smile faded as he thought
of the uncompleted bathhouse and unfinished outside conduits to the
cistern. He should check those drains before long.

   He wished he’d been able to
roof and finish the bathhouse before the rain. The heating stove in the
bathhouse was only half-built. With the laser gone, he’d have
to mortar the plates for the water heater in place, but he
couldn’t do any more brick and stonework until the rain
stopped, and the clouds outside were so dark they were almost black.

   Nylan took another sip of the hot tea
that tasted almost undrinkable, but seemed to help relax rigid muscles
and relieve the worst of the headache, and massaged the back of his
neck with his left hand once again.

   The main tower door opened and then
closed. A single figure stomped wet boots, then headed toward the
tables.

   “You look like
manure.” Ayrlyn slid onto the bench across the table from the
engineer. Her short red hair was wet and plastered to her skull, and
rivulets of water ran down her cheeks.

   “Manure feels better. You look
wet.”

   “The joys of trying to locate
logs and timber before the weather turns really nasty. We need more
deadwood for the furnace and kitchen stove. It cuts easier.”
Ayrlyn wiped the water off her face, but another rivulet coursed down
her left cheek right afterward. “There’s a lot of
internal work this place needs. That means green wood, and
it’s a mess to cut.”

   Nylan’s eyes rose to the blank
stone walls, the unfinished shelves, and the lack of interior walls.
“You could say that.”

   Ayrlyn studied Nylan. “You look
like a worn-out engineer.”

   “You look like a soaked and
worn-out artisan and singer.” Nylan paused. “I
never did tell you how effective that Westwind guard song
was.”

   “It’s a terrible
song,” protested Ayrlyn.

   “That’s why
it’s effective. Every anthem ever written is terrible, either
melodically or because it’s lyrically tear-jerking.”

   “You’ve made a
study?”

   “No… but the Sybran
anthem… you know, ‘the winters of time…
the banners of ice…’ Or how about the Svennish
hymn to the mother? Or ‘The Swift Ships of Heaven’?
Have you really listened to the words?”

   “Enough.” Ayrlyn
laughed. “Enough.”

   “All right… but what
about the Akalyrr ‘Song to the Father’?”

   “Enough! I said
enough.”

   Nylan sipped his tea, trying not to
grimace.

   “That good?”

   “It helps. That’s all
I can say about it.” He set the mug down again.
“Have you learned anything new from our friend
Relyn?”

   Ayrlyn glanced toward the end of the
great room. “He’s learning how to use that hand,
but he still feels crippled- and angry. He’s confused, too,
because he owes allegiance to this Lord Sillek, yet he feels he was
tricked. He also doesn’t think much of Narliat… or
of Gerlich, for that matter.”

   “He has good taste,”
Nylan said. “Has he told you anything new that we
didn’t know about this planet?”

   “It’s hard to
say.” Ayrlyn frowned. “He pretty much agrees with
Narliat’s story about the landing of the demons, and so does
Hryessa. She’s taken to Saryn, by the way. She sees Ryba as a
goddess, and she can’t relate to a goddess. Saryn’s
merely a mighty warrior. Hryessa also tells the demon story a little
differently-the demons are the patrons of men and of the wizards, and
white is the color of destruction here.”

   “Why wouldn’t it
be?” asked Nylan. “The demons of light are
white.”

   “In a lot of cultures,
especially low-tech ones, white means purity. It was in ancient Svenn,
and in Etalyarr. Here, darkness is pure, and there’s not much
emphasis on cleanliness. All wizards are men, obviously.”

   “Wonderful.” Nylan
glanced toward the door and the stairs, but the great room remained
empty save for them.

   “Black wizards are rare.
That’s why Hryessa will look at you.”

   “Because I’m
rare?”

   “Because they all think
you’re a black wizard.” Ayrlyn smiled.

   “How would they know? I
don’t even know why what I do works.”

   “For Relyn, Hryessa, and
Narliat, it’s simple. White wizards throw firebolts without
using tools or weapons. White wizards destroy people and things. Black
wizards build things, like towers, tools, and weapons. Or heal. You
build. So you’re a black wizard.” Ayrlyn shrugged.
“You also have silver hair, and none of the white wizards do.
They aren’t sure about black wizards, since there
aren’t many.”

   “If I have to be one or the
other, I guess it’s better to be black.” Nylan took
another sip of the tea, trying not to make a face, then set the
earthenware mug-a recent addition from Rienadre and the brick kiln-down
and massaged his neck. “Your healing makes you a black
wizard, too.”

   “I don’t know that
I’m any wizard…”

   “You’re a
healer.”

   “A minor black wizard, then.
Very minor.”

   Ayrlyn offered a quick smile, then
continued. “Relyn seems to think that this Lord Sillek has
his hands full. His western neighbor, a charming fellow named Ildyrom,
has been trying to take over some grasslands. Young Sillek also is
being choked by his northern neighbor. Relyn doesn’t
understand the government there, but it sounds like a form of council
run by big traders. They hold the river near the Northern Ocean and all
the ports.”

   “So he’s got trouble
on all sides?”

   “According to Relyn. Narliat
says it’s not that bad, and all Hryessa knows is that food
has gotten scarcer. Oh, Relyn also says that no one likes fighting the
westerners-Jeranyi, I think they’re called-because the women
fight alongside the men.”

   “Rather chauvinistic
culture.”

   “I’d say
that’s the rule, mostly. It’s a warm
planet.”

   “What does warmth have to do
with male chauvinism?”

   “It doesn’t
necessarily, except that women handle extreme cold better than men.
Look at Heaven, where women have more than half the government. Some
anthropologists theorize that cold tolerance is the whole basis of the
Sybran culture.” Ayrlyn spread her hands.

   “Do these Jeranyi come from a
cold culture? I didn’t recall any mountains there.”

   “No. Maybe there’s
some other reason.”

   “Anything else?”

   “He’s given me a lot
about local customs, trade, that sort of thing, but it’s
background. Helpful, but background. The other thing is that this Lord
Sillek doesn’t have an heir, or any surviving siblings. That
bothered Relyn.”

   “Probably civil war if Sillek
dies,” mused Nylan. “Two out of three says this
Sillek’s definitely got his hands full.” He looked
down at the rapidly cooling tea and wondered if he could force himself
to drink any more.

   “That’s my reading,
but we’re only going on what we’ve seen, and that
isn’t much, plus the in-depth reports of three locals, and
the offhand remarks of traders.” Ayrlyn blotted a thin line
of water from her neck below her right ear. “Rain looks like
it’s never going to stop.”

   “It’s probably
snowing on the mountaintops.” Nylan looked toward the
windows, then swung his feet over the bench. “Time to check
the drains.”

   “Drains?”

   “The little details, like
keeping the tower from being washed away. The things that get forgotten
in the sagas of heroes and heroic deeds.”

   “Still bitter about
that?”

   “A little.” He
snorted. “But it’s time to go get wet.”

   “I’m going to dry off
some before I go back out there.”

   “I haven’t been out,
and I should have been.” The engineer stood and carried the
mug down to the north door of the tower, where he washed it in the one
bucket, rinsed it in the other, and racked it in the peeled-limb
framework leaned against the stone wall. The second slot in the upper
left was his.

   Then he closed his jacket and eased open
the north door, which not only squeaked, but scraped against the floor
stones. A blast of rain slewed across him, but he hurried out and
closed the door behind him.

   The water resistance of his ship jacket
wouldn’t last long, but he wanted to check the drains in the
uncompleted bathhouse. The last thing he wanted was the rain
undercutting the walls or their foundation.

   A roll of thunder followed another line
of what seemed solid water that hit Nylan just as he ducked through the
half-covered archway and into the unroofed bathhouse.

   “Oh… frig!”

   The water was already ankle-deep. Nylan
plodded forward toward the first drain where he could sense some
drainage. He pushed back his sleeves and thrust his hands into the
water, ignoring the chill, feeling around, and finally finding a chunk
of brick. He pulled that out of the mud, only to have something sharp
scrape the back of his left hand. He heaved the fragment over the wall
and bent down again, fishing through the muddy water and coming up with
a long shard of slate. He threw that outside the walls and looked at
his hand.

   The rain washed away the blood from the
thin cut as fast as it welled out, but the cut was only skin-deep. The
water started to swirl down the drain, then stopped. The engineer
sighed and went fishing again, this time coming up with a round stone
just the right size to plug the drain.

   He watched the water swirl and start to
drain, and again stop.

   After repeating the process nearly a
dozen times, the drain seemed to be flowing freely, and he slogged
through the instep-deep water to the other end of the bathhouse and the
second drain-also plugged.

   After four tries, he got the second drain
running freely, but the first drain had become plugged again-with
several more stone fragments.

   All in all, Nylan slogged back and forth
between the two drains nearly half a dozen times before the area inside
the walls was drained, although several depressions remained as
ankle-deep puddles.

   Then he circled the tower, checking the
rock-lined drainage way on the lower east side of the tower. While the
drainage way was a narrow rushing stream that seemed to divert the
deluge from the tower foundations, beyond the stones the water had
already dug a trench knee-deep through the lowest point of the
makeshift road to the ridge.

   Nylan shook his head. They would need a
stone culvert, or something, to keep the road from being washed out
with every heavy rainstorm. He took a deep breath and headed back to
the north door of the tower, his shipboots squishing with every step.

   Water-resistant or not, Nylan’s
jacket was soaked, as was everything else. But the drains were working,
and the water from all around the tower was flowing freely into the
outfall he had designed. Beyond the outfall… He just winced.

   His head ached again; his neck and
shoulder muscles were tight, and his eyes burned, and he trudged back
to the north side of the tower. He turned the heavy lever, and the
latch plate lifted. A strong push and the door swung open, barely wide
enough for him to squeeze through sideways, before it stuck.

   Nylan edged inside and checked the door.
The hinge pins were solid, and the strap plates hadn’t moved.
He bent down, then nodded. With the moisture, the wood had swelled, and
perhaps the latch end had drooped some with the extra weight and usage.
Whatever the exact reason, the end of the door was wedged on the stone.

   He grunted, and half lifted, half shoved
the door back closed.

   After closing the door, he took off his
jacket and wrung it dry, letting the water spill on the stones by the
door. Then he stripped off his boots and the shipsuit and repeated the
process with the shipsuit, ignoring the fact that he was standing
near-nude by the door. He turned his boots upside down and poured out
the remaining water.

   As he set them down, the north door eased
open, then stuck once more.

   Siret squeezed inside, barely able to
maneuver her thickening midsection through the narrow opening. Her deep
green eyes fixed on him. “Ser?”

   “Trying to wring out the worst
of the water,” he explained.

   Siret said nothing, her eyes still on him
as he redonned the shipsuit, and he could feel himself blushing. Once
he had the damp suit back on, he shoved the door shut, barefoot, his
feet sliding on the cold damp stones.

   “I’m sorry,
ser,” Siret finally said. “I should have helped,
but I… I just… I don’t know what
happened.” Her eyes did not meet Nylan’s.

   “That’s all
right.” He slowly pulled on the damp boots. “Thank
you.” Siret turned and headed toward the great room on the
other side of the central stairs.

   Nylan followed. Even before he was two
steps into the great room, he felt the heat, from the hearth, more
welcome than the odor of fresh bread coming from the grass baskets. He
spread his damp jacket on the shelves beneath the stairs, then walked
toward the warmth, glad that his seat was close to the hearth.

   The two tables were nearly filled with
damp marines. Narliat’s dry leathers stood out, as did
Kadran’s and Kyseen’s. The dryness of the
cooks’ clothing, Nylan could understand, but Narliat sat
beside Gerlich, who looked like a drowned rodent, with his damp
chestnut beard and longer hair plastered against the back of his neck.
Relyn, across the table, was soaked as well, but he offered a smile.

   Nylan returned Relyn’s smile
and nodded when he passed Gerlich, and then eased into the seat at the
end of the bench closest to the hearth.

   Saryn sat on the end of the table with
her back to the windows, across from Nylan. Between her and Ayrlyn sat
Hryessa in dampened leathers. Relyn sat to Ayrlyn’s left.

   “The fire feels
good,” Nylan observed.

   “Since everyone’s
soaked, it seemed like a good idea.” Ryba smiled faintly.
“Our resident healer and communicator pointed that
out.”

   “The damp is worse for health
than snow would be. So I suggested the fire,” Ayrlyn said.

   Nylan turned on the bench so that the
heat from the hearth would warm his back. While the shipsuits were
thin, the synthetics did dry quickly.

   The big pot in the center of the table
held a soupy stew, to be poured over the bread. Saryn passed him a
basket of bread, and he broke off a chunk, then stood and ladled stew
over it.

   “How did you get
soaked?” Ryba asked.

   “Cleaning out the drains in the
bathhouse so that the foundations wouldn’t get washed away. I
also checked the other drains and the outfalls.”

   “It’s snowing on the
higher peaks,” said Ayrlyn. “I wouldn’t
be surprised if we got snow here within an eight-day or two.”

   “I hope it holds off.
We’ve still got a bunch to do to get the bathhouse
finished.”

   “Will it take that
long?” asked Ryba.

   “Long enough,” said
Nylan, pouring the hot root and bark tea into his mug where, when the
hot liquid hit the clay, the mug cracked in two, as if a magical knife
had cloven it, and the tea poured across the table.

   “Friggin‘…
!” Nylan nearly knocked over the bench as he lurched sideways
to avoid the boiling liquid that had started to drip off the table onto
his legs. As he stood beside Ryba’s chair, he looked around
for something to wipe away the tea.

   “Ser!” Kyseen stood
and tossed a bunched rag toward Nylan, which opened and dropped onto
Hryessa’s bread and stew.

   Hryessa’s mouth opened.

   “These things
happen,” said Ayrlyn calmly, as she reclaimed the rag and
spread it on the tea puddle.

   Hryessa looked at her stew and bread,
then at Ayrlyn.

   Saryn grinned, shaking her head.
“It doesn’t look like it’s been your
morning, Engineer.”

   Nylan reached forward and gathered the
tea- and stew-soaked rag, carefully wringing the liquid into the inside
corner of the hearth where the heat would evaporate it. Then he mopped
up more of the tea and repeated the process.

   In time he sat back down, glad at least
that the split mug hadn’t poured bark tea over his bread and
stew.

   “Here’s another mug,
ser.” Rienadre set one in front of him and retreated.
“Some of them don’t fire right. I’m
sorry.”

   “Would you pour the
tea?” Nylan asked. “I haven’t had much
luck.” Rienadre took the kettle and poured. The mug held.

   “Thank you.” Nylan
took a small sip, marveling that the tea wasn’t bad. That
alone told him how bedraggled he felt. He took a mouthful of bread and
stew, then another, trying to ignore the bitterness of the tubers and
onions. From the corner of his eye as he set down his mug, Nylan could
see Gerlich bending toward Narliat.

   “Finishing the bathhouse with
hand tools is going to take time-and dryer weather,” the
engineer added.

   “Cannot a mage do
anything?” asked Narliat. “You have builded a tower
that reaches to the skies, and you cannot make a few channels in
stone?”

   Put that way… Nylan frowned.
“Perhaps I can, after all.” The real question was
the timing of Narliat’s question. Was Gerlich thinking up the
nasty questions for the armsman, or was Narliat that disruptive on his
own?

   “You are a great mage, and
great mages do great things,” Narliat added.

   Nylan wanted to strangle him for the
setup. Instead, he turned to the armsman. “I have never
claimed to be a great mage. But I have done my best to accomplish what
needed to be done, and I will continue to do so.” His eyes
locked on Narliat until the other looked away.

   Then he took another chunk of bread and
ate more of the stew, trying to ignore the gamy taste Kyseen had not
been able to mask with salt and strong onions.

 

 

XLII

 

AS HE WAITED for Ryba, Nylan stood in the darkness at the
unshuttered, unglazed window and looked at Freyja, the knife edges of
the needle-peak softened but slightly by the starlight and by the snow.

   His stomach growled, reminding him that
the spiced bear stew-that was what Kyseen had called it-had not fully
agreed with his system. Would it be that way all winter, although he
could scarcely call it winter, since only a few dustings of snow had
fallen around the tower? Not all of the scrub bushes and deciduous
trees had shed their gray leaves, although it was clear most kept about
half, shriveled against the winter.

   Meals were enough, so far, to keep body
together, but not much more, and it wasn’t that cold yet.

   Nylan leaned forward and looked to the
north side of the tower and the half-roofed bathhouse. Almost
instinctively, he curled his hands, and his fingertips rested on the
callused spots at the base of his fingers. He had far too much to
finish, far too much, and, as time passed, fewer and fewer cared,
except for the few like Ryba, Ayrlyn, and Huldran, and the guards with
children.

   He turned toward the stairs as he heard
Ryba’s steps-heavier now-approaching.

   “Dyliess hasn’t been
kind to my bladder,” said the marshal.

   “I’m sorry about the
tower design,” apologized Nylan. “I just
wasn’t thinking about waste disposal.”

   In a rough-sewn nightshirt of grayish
beaten linen, Ryba sat down heavily on her side of the twin couches.
“Narliat and Relyn think this tower is luxury, the sort of
place for lords and dukes or whatever. Neither wants to leave.
They’ll have to, by spring at the latest.”

   “If they have to leave, why are
you letting them stay?”

   “I don’t want the
locals to find out much about us until we’ve got things in
better order. So far, the only people who have left have been those who
have fled our weapons, mostly in terror, and traders who have never
seen things closely. I’d like to keep it that way for a while
longer. And we can learn a few things more from Narliat and
Relyn.” Ryba shrugged. “Relyn might end up
fathering a child or two, and he seems bright enough.”

   The engineer pulled at his chin,
“You’re pregnant, and so are Siret and Ellysia.
Isn’t that a lot for the numbers we’ve
got?”

   “Three or four out of
sixteen-not counting Hryessa- that’s only about a third, and
most will be able to fight by late spring. Most children will be born
in winter or early spring in Westwind, anyway.”

   The calm certainty in Ryba’s
voice chilled Nylan more than the wind at his back, but he asked,
“Four?”

   “I think Istril is,
also,” said Ryba.

   “Istril? She doesn’t
strike me as the type to play around.”

   “I could be wrong,”
Ryba said. “I’m not always certain about these
things, but she will be sooner or later.”

   “But who?”

   “I can’t pry-or
see-into everything, Nylan. Right now, I’m just fortunate
enough to be gifted, or cursed, with glimpses of what might be.
That’s bad enough. More than enough.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   “Do you know what
it’s like to see pieces of the future? Not to know, for
certain, if they’re what will be or what might be? Or whether
you’ll bring them into being by reacting against
them?”

   Nylan cleared his throat. “I
said I was sorry. I hadn’t thought about things quite that
way.”

   Ryba looked at the stones of the wall
beside Nylan. “You deal with stone and brick and metal-the
certain things. I’m wrestling with what will sustain life
here for generations to come. What do I do about men who are killers?
Or those who will leave? Or may leave?”

   “I don’t like the
implication that I’ll leave.” Nylan sat down beside
the dark-haired woman and touched her shoulder. “I
don’t have any pat answers. I do what I can, everything that
I can think Of, as well as I can.”

   “I know, Nylan. You work like
two people. You’ve done things I don’t think are
possible, and Westwind wouldn’t be without you. But a place
isn’t a community without traditions, values, that sort of
thing, holding it together. That’s why we need your tower,
Ayrlyn’s songs-”

   “And your ability to teach and
create military strength?”

   Ryba nodded. “It’s
going to be tough.”

   “It’s already
hard.”

   “It’s going to get
harder,” she predicted, looking out at the cold shape of
Freyja. “A lot harder.”

   In the end, they lay skin to skin, and,
after a time, Ryba was passionate, demanding, and warm. Predictably,
before they had even relaxed, she had to get up.

   “You just went,” he
protested sleepily.

   “There are some things,
especially now, where I don’t control the timing.”
She pulled her gown down and padded down the stone steps.

   Fighting exhaustion and sleep, Nylan
tried to analyze the subtle wrongness behind her words… but
nothing made sense.

   Before either solutions or sleep reached
him, Ryba padded back up the steps and slipped into the couch. Her cool
hand stroked his forehead for a moment. “You’re a
good man, Nylan. No matter what happens, remember that.” She
squeezed his shoulder.

   He squeezed her hand in return and
murmured, “Know you try your best, for everyone.”

   She shuddered, and let him hold her, but
she would not turn to him as she sobbed silently.

 

 

XLIII

 

IN THE NORTH yard outside the bathhouse, Nylan picked up the
hammer and chisel. Behind him, on the roof, Denalle and Huldran spiked
roof tiles onto the cross-stringers mortised into the main timbers to
provide a flat surface.

   Overhead, the clouds were white and
puffy, like summer clouds, but the chill in the late autumn wind belied
that. To the west, the clouds seemed evenly spaced, and Nylan hoped
that they would stay that way. His eyes dropped to the pair on the
roof-Cessya had ridden off with Ayrlyn.

   “… damned gourds,
whatever they were, never ripened… bitter in the stew, worse
than that rancid bear meat…”

   “Just keep complaining,
Denalle, and I’ll spike your hand right under the next
tile,” snapped Huldran.

   “Potatoes are good…
hope they last…”

   “More spikes,
Denalle.”

   Nylan let his eyes drop from the
unfinished roof to the dark stone before him that would be a
water-conduit section.

   “And you cannot make a few
channels in stone?” Narliat had asked, at Gerlich’s
prompting. And Ryba had just left Nylan hanging.

   His choices were simple. Abandon the idea
of showers. Finish the trough pipes in wood, which would need
continuous maintenance, or try low-tech stone-cutting methods. In a
low-tech culture, cleanliness was important for health and survival,
and if he didn’t make it easy or halfway convenient,
cleanliness would go the way of the Winterlance. Besides, abandoning
anything would cause problems with Gerlich. He was coming to like the
big man less and less. Was that because he was coming to trust his
feelings more? And Ryba-how much was she deceiving him, just to ensure
that Westwind would survive?

   He moistened his lips. In some ways, it
didn’t matter. He was stuck finishing the bathhouse the hard
way. He took a deep breath and studied the chunk of dark stone, letting
his senses drop into the heavy mass, following the lines of stress and
fault. If he nudged that line… and boosted that…
then, just maybe, the stone would break…

   He brought the hammer down on the chisel.
Clung! The impact shivered up his left arm. There was a technique to
chiseling stone, and he had no idea of what it was. He raised the
hammer again.

   Clung! A flake of stone the size of his
thumb flew from the chisel, but the reverberation still numbed his arm.
A dozen strokes later, he had learned a better angle and not to grip
the chisel so tightly. He also had only chipped out a narrow groove in
the stone.

   The clouds had almost disappeared,
leaving the sky a bright green-blue, but the wind seemed stronger, and
colder.

   Even before he heard the hooves, Nylan
could sense the approaching horses, knowing that they were marines-and
Ayrlyn. There was no sense of the white disorderliness that seemed to
accompany the arrival of locals.

   The five horses, and the cart acquired
from Skiodra and since rebuilt, headed over the ridge and down the
track to the tower. The clay remained damp enough from the previous
rain that there was no dust. Riding pillion behind Istril was a woman
in tattered leathers, with long brown hair. Another refugee? wondered
the engineer. And Istril? She wasn’t riding any differently.
Was that another of Ryba’s foresights? Something that might
be?

   Nylan shrugged, wondering how many more
women would arrive at Tower Black before the winter closed in. Given
the attrition the angels had suffered, more bodies would be helpful-if
there were enough food. They had the sheep and the chickens, but how
would they feed livestock through the winter? Didn’t that
mean more grain? Or grass or hay? Or something?

   As the horses passed and he saw that
Ayrlyn was safe, he picked up the hammer once more, ignoring the
numbness in his fingers from the wind and the impact of iron upon steel.

   By the time the triangle by the main
south entrance to the tower clanged for the midday meal, Nylan had
completed rough channels in two stones, each the length of his forearm.
His fingers were cramping, and his arms were scratched from the rock
fragments that had split and ricocheted. No wonder not much got built
quickly-or with any complexity-in a low-tech, culture.

   Nylan set aside the hammer and chisel and
stood stretching as Denalle and Huldran climbed off the roof. The
eastern side was more than half finished. “Looks
good,” he offered. “Except we have to mortar it or
it’ll be dripping melted snow inside all winter,”
pointed out Huldran.

   “Doing the roof’s
friggin‘ hard on the knees,” added Denalle.

   “You want to wash clothes in
the snow?” asked the older guard.

   “The way things are
going,” said Denalle, looking down at her threadbare and
tattered working shipsuit, “we won’t have anything
to wash.”

   “The healer just brought in a
cart of some kind of cloth, and more barrels of flour, it looked like.
You’ll be spending part of the winter sewing up your kit for
next year.” Huldran smiled at Nylan.

   “I didn’t sign up for
sewing.”

   “Neither did the rest of us. Do
you want to fight with your bare breasts hanging out?” asked
Huldran.

   Denalle glared at the ground.

   “Let’s go
eat,” suggested the engineer.

   As Nylan neared the lower table, Relyn,
sitting beside Jaseen, raised his right arm, and the artificial hand,
and nodded. The engineer smiled back.

   “You made that, ser?”
asked Huldran. “Why?”

   “So he wouldn’t have
any excuses to mope around,” Nylan said dryly.
“You’ll note that I made it blunt. Very
blunt.”

   Huldran laughed.

   The newcomer was seated between Saryn and
Ayrlyn, near the head of the table on the window side. For some reason
Narliat was on Ayrlyn’s right, with Gerlich on the other side
of the former armsman. Nylan surveyed the two tables and found that
Hryessa was seated near the foot of the second table, beside Istril and
across from Relyn and Jaseen. Istril looked down at her trencher, and
her lips curled. Had Ryba been right? Was she pregnant? The engineer
glanced toward the hearth and kept walking until he reached the end of
the table.

   “How is it going?”
Ryba asked as Nylan waited for Huldran and then slipped into his end
seat beside the marine.

   “Huldran and the others are
doing well on the roof. Maybe two days before it’s
tight.”

   “Could be three,”
Huldran said, “if we run into trouble.”

   “And you?” Ryba asked
Nylan.

   “I’m getting the hang
of the stone-cutting, but it’s slow.”

   “The weather will hold for at
least several days,” Ayrlyn said.

   “Good.” Nylan poured
some of the hot bark-and-root tea and waited. The mug did not crack. He
picked it up and took a sip, waiting for Huldran to help herself to the
bread in the grass basket. “Another refugee?” The
engineer turned to Ayrlyn as he took a chunk of bread and handed the
basket to Ryba.

   “Thank you,” said the
marshal.

   “This is Murkassa,”
said Ayrlyn in Old Anglorat. “She’s from Gnotos.
That’s a little town in Gallos, just east of the
Westhorns.”

   The round-faced girl, and she seemed more
a girl than a woman, nodded, her long hair so thin that it fell in a
cloud over her shoulders.

   “This is Nylan. He is an
engineer and a mage,” Ayrlyn explained, still in Anglorat.

   Murkassa’s brow furrowed at the
word “engineer.” She turned to Ayrlyn.
“What kind of mage?”

   “Black, I’m
told,” Nylan answered before Narliat could open his mouth and
create trouble. “I make things.”

   Narliat had his mouth open, but
Ayrlyn’s elbow caught the former armsman in the gut, and he
closed it.

   “Nylan is-” Gerlich
started to speak, then stopped as he realized Murkassa did not
understand him.

   “How was your luck with the
traders, Ayrlyn?” asked Ryba.

   “They had some of what we
needed, but it cost me three blades and a gold.” She glanced
at Nylan. “I’m not quite as good as the
engineer.”

   “Any spikes?” Nylan
asked, knowing that Huldran wanted to know.

   “A small keg-those were half a
gold, and they wouldn’t budge on that, but you and Huldran
put them high on the list.”

   “We can’t finish the
bathhouse roof without them,” said the marine. “Not
without taking all winter.”

   “What else?”

   “Heavy wool cloth. Rough as a
new recruit. Some tanned hides for winter gloves, another eight barrels
of flour and two of dried fruit. A bag of salt for drying whatever we
slaughter or bring in from hunting. Another big kettle for Kyseen. A
half-dozen needles-another half gold, but how can anyone sew without
needles?-and a roll or spool of heavy thread that’s almost
twine. And a bunch of little things, some spices, and a big bag of
onions and two sacks of potatoes, and a barrel of dried corn for the
livestock.” The redhead shrugged. “That
doesn’t leave too much in the Westwind treasury. They said
they’d be back in an eight-day, if it doesn’t
snow.”

   “After that, we’ll
probably be on our own, I guess,” said Ryba. “The
snow line is creeping down the peaks around us.” She turned
to Murkassa and switched to Anglorat. “How… did
you… come to Westwind?”

   “I was sold to be the consort
of Jilkar. He is a hauler in Gnotos, and a strong man. He beat his
first consort to death because she angered him. She gave him only
daughters, and then she ran away with a trooper from Fenard. Jilkar
found them and let the man go.” Murkassa shrugged.
“He would have beaten me. He beats everyone. I heard of the
tower of women, and I ran. If I did not find you, I would die in the
Westhorns. But I did find you.” A fleeting smile crossed her
face.

   “You are welcome to stay as
long as you wish.”

   “Can I stay forever?”

   “If you follow our
way,” Ryba answered. “No one said anything to
Jilkar?” Ayrlyn’s tone suggested she knew the
answer.

   “No. He is the hauler. He takes
the wool to Fenard. He is stronger than any two men, and he has a house
on the hill with guards.”

   As the others drew out the sordid social
structure of Gnotos, all too familiar a pattern, from what Nylan could
tell, he sipped the tea and ate.

   After the midday meal, Nylan returned to
the north tower yard, and the cold wind out of the northwest. Huldran,
Cessya, and Denalle worked on the roof, with Cessya lugging up the
stones, Denalle placing them, and Huldran spiking them in place.

   Nylan studied the stone that he was
supposed to turn into a conduit. There had to be a faster way to cut
the stone, didn’t there? For a long time, he let his senses
range over the oblong of black rock before him. He’d already
discovered that he felt uneasy, so much that his head ached and his
stomach twisted, if he even came close to mimicking the white lines of
fire that the local mages effected.

   After concentrating on the stone for a
time, he finally placed the chisel and lifted the hammer. The
reverberations seemed to be less when he didn’t worry so much
about precise chisel placement, but the order of the stone.

   His progress was better with the new
technique, not anything to boast about compared to the laser, but by
the time the triangle clanged again, he had five more lengths of
conduit bottom.

   After he stacked the conduit in the
corner of the bathhouse, on the eastern side under the completed roof,
he flexed his sore and increasingly callused fingers-only small
blisters.

   “You really got that in
place,” he told Huldran, looking up at the expanse of
completed roof tiling.

   “Thank darkness that the healer
came up with another keg of spikes.” The marine reached out
and knocked on the side of the crude ladder-pole she had just climbed
down. “I never thought so, but you might get your bathhouse
and laundry, ser.”

   “I thought you wanted the
showers,” Nylan joked.

   “Choosing between stinking and
bathing in ice water isn’t a choice I’d want to
make.” Huldran lowered the ladder-pole, and she and Denalle
laid it down under the completed roof, then gathered the spikes they
had dropped.

   Every single spike was valuable, Nylan
realized, especially in a low-tech culture where each had to be
fashioned by hand. He walked around the tower to the stream, hoping it
wouldn’t be too long before he could use the bathhouse. After
washing his hands and face, he walked back around the tower and, as he
neared the almost-completed archway from the bathhouse to the tower, he
whistled a few notes. What were the words?

   “… an
engineer’s work is never done, / not even after the long
day’s run…”

   He smiled to himself as he opened the
door, which no longer scraped the stones-although it had taken Saryn
and Selitra most of a morning to plane and carve it back into shape.

   “You seem cheerful,
Engineer,” said Gerlich. Narliat just bowed.

   “The stone-shaping’s
coming better, and Huldran’s got the roof in place.”

   “Good.” Gerlich
offered a quick smile, and he and Narliat turned, leaving Nylan as he
closed the north door.

   The engineer wondered why neither had
looked pleased. Did they want to stink or bathe in freezing water? Or
was it because each of Nylan’s accomplishments boosted
Ryba’s authority and the satisfaction of the guards with her
rule? And it was rule, Nylan knew full well, and there wasn’t
that much doubt in Nylan’s mind that Gerlich would rather be
the one doing the ruling-or that having Gerlich in charge would be a
disaster. Ryba did what had to be done, but Nylan knew it
wasn’t always easy for her. Gerlich would end up like every
other male tyrant on the planet.

   He pulled at his chin, wondering why so
many men had to dominate. Then maybe women would be just the same,
given the chance. With a shrug, he walked toward the hearth of the
great room and the aroma of fresh-baked bread and cooked onions.

 

 

XLXIV

 

HISSL PACES ACROSS the small room, then peers out the window
toward the river and the stubbled fields that lie beyond. Although the
sun glints off the puddles in the fields, the sky is turning the bluer
green-blue that presages winter. The wizard looks away from the distant
points of glare and paces back toward the table.

   “Nothing! We sit here and wait.
And Terek meets with Lord Sillek while I rot here.”

   He paces back across the small room,
passing the table and the screeing glass again, then back to the
window. The distant puddles still throw glare at him.

   Finally, he seats himself at the table
that holds the flat mirrorlike glass. He concentrates. The white mists
swirl. He concentrates until the sweat beads on his forehead, although
the room is pleasantly cool, filled with the scents from the bakery up
the street, and the hum of conversations.

   At last, the image appears-that of a
black tower, with a second, and lower, building rising beside it,
already roofed with the same black slate tiles that cover the taller
tower. A short, stone-walled causeway leads to the tower and to a heavy
door banded together with strips of metal-not iron, but some metal
Hissl does not recognize, though it feels like iron through the glass.

   Farther uphill, the angels, some in black
and others in leathers, are digging a long ditch in a line that leads
toward the tower. On the uphill portion of the ditch, the black mage
and an angel are placing lengths of stone in the trench. There is a
trough filled with what might be mortar beside the stones.

   Hissl squints and tries to focus the
image, but the best he can do is catch a glimpse of a section of rock
that appears to have a deep trench gouged in it. He slumps back into
the chair.

   “Black angels and a black
mage.” He shivers for a moment. No lord he knows could have
built a tower like that, and not in a mere two seasons. Yet the black
mage who lives with the angels has done so, and the mage has done other
things, as well, things that Hissl does not understand.

   “Still, they have not felt the
winter, and the number of cairns grows. By
spring…” He raises his eyebrows and smiles.

   In the spring and early summer, Ildyrom
and his people will be busy planting. Hissl nods to himself.

 

 

XLV

 

A LOW FIRE burned in the bathhouse stove, but the building-
still open inside except for the three jakes stalls at the north
end-remained chill.

   Nylan washed and shaved his several
days’ worth of beard in one of the laundry tubs. He looked
wistfully to his right, at the unfinished showers, and at the piles of
slate stone and powdered mortar heaped in the middle of the room. While
there was water to the ceramic nozzles, he and Huldran still had to
finish the stone floors, or all they would have would be frozen clay.
He took a deep breath and splashed away skin, whiskers, and blood.

   After washing, he rinsed his waste water
down the floor drain, with a breath of relief as the water gurgled out
of sight. He hoped the combination of deeply buried drain lines and the
outfall covering-and oversizing-would be enough to get them through the
winter.

   Wearing just a tattered pair of
trousers-spoils, again- he walked the length of the bathhouse, along
the already packed clay of the east side, and through the archway into
the tower and up the stairs, all four flights to the top level.

   Ryba had already dressed, and was pulling
on her boots as Nylan stripped off the leather trousers and donned his
working shipsuit. She stood and straightened the blanket as he
struggled into the leather boots.

   “It looks like a storm is
coming in hard,” she said. “Can you finish the
bathhouse?”

   “The inside will take a day or
two more. We’ve got the jakes and the laundry area
finished.” Nylan walked over to the sole armaglass window and
looked up at the dark clouds boiling out of the northwest, cloaking
Freyja in blackness, with snow thickening and dropping to shroud the
lower parts of the western peaks and the heights behind the tower.

   A thin layer of ice covered the window
ledge outside the casement, and the engineer watched as one flake, then
another, dropped onto the ice, melding with it and turning transparent,
the black-gray stone showing through.

   The flakes thickened, and even the lower
sections of Freyja disappeared in the snow that seemed so white near
the tower and so dark in the distance. The ground remained brown, with
a few white patches.

   Nylan closed the armaglass window, and
the shutters. When he looked down, he realized that he had stood before
the open window long enough for a small pile of flakes to accumulate,
but as he watched, the whiteness faded into a damp splotch on the
roughly smoothed plank floor.

   “Why did you close the
shutters?” asked Ryba, fully dressed in her shipsuit, and
even wearing a black ship jacket. “It looks like midnight in
here that way. I can’t see in pitch-blackness, the way you
can.”

   “We’re going down to
the main level, and no one’s going to be here.” He
walked around the couches toward where the marshal of Westwind stood.

   “That makes sense, but it still
bothers me when it’s so dark.”

   “It’s going to be a
long and dark winter.”

   “You are so cheerful this
morning.”

   “I try,” he answered.

   They walked down the long stone steps,
the sounds of their boots echoing away from the stairwell and into the
open levels they passed. Several marines were still dressing on the
third level, but none looked toward Nylan and Ryba.

   The tables were largely full, and even
Murkassa sat at the end, on Istril’s right, while Hryessa sat
on the slim trooper’s left. Istril looked at the bread on her
trencher, but had not lifted it.

   Did she look pale? Nylan smiled, getting
a quick and faint smile in return as he followed Ryba toward the head
of the table and the hearth.

   After he slid onto the bench, Nylan
poured the bark-and-root tea into the dark brown mug. The
tea’s taste was still bitter, but warming. He reached for the
dark bread.

   “A storm like this
won’t last,” predicted Relyn, sitting at the last
seat on the window side of the first table. “The snowflakes
are too large.”

   “The snow will bring a long
rest,” pronounced Narliat. His cloak was wrapped tightly
around him, and he glanced toward the cold hearth.

   “I’m glad for the
rest,” announced Huldran.

   “You don’t get one.
Not yet,” said Nylan. “We’ve still got
the shower floors and partitions to install.”

   “Cessya can help.”

   Cessya looked at Huldran, her eyes dark.

   “It’s easier than
clearing and packing snow,” intervened Nylan.

   “What are you talking
about?” asked Gerlich.

   “We still have to keep the area
around the doors, the outfalls, and the trails to the stables and down
to the forest open.” Nylan pulled at his chin, then looked
toward Ayrlyn, then Ryba. Both nodded.

   “We’ll need to have
ways the horses can travel. They’ll need some
exercise,” pointed out Ayrlyn. “We’ll
need them to bring up more wood.” She cleared her throat
“Hryessa, Siret, and Murkassa need to gather more
cones.”

   “Cones?” asked Nylan.

   “They have seeds, and
they’ll help feed the chickens,” Ayrlyn said.

   “Your chickens, they will taste
like the pine trees.”

   “I’d rather have live
pine-tasting chickens than dead tasty ones halfway through the winter.
We don’t have near enough food for the livestock, and that
will help,” answered Ayrlyn. “If the traders come
back, they’re supposed to have some more dried corn. If they
come back…”

   “We can’t have people
sitting around all winter,” added ‘ Saryn.
“They’d be at each others’
throats.”

   “They can’t sit
around anyway,” said Ryba. “We’ll need
some additional food, something from hunting, and probably more
firewood.”

   “A lot more
firewood,” predicted Nylan. “We probably ought to
require dragging as much up here as we burn.”

   “How?”

   “If we keep doing it, we should
be able to keep a path clear to the forest at the base of the ridge.
Ayrlyn-you said we could drag trunks with the horses, and cut them
outside the causeway.”

   “The guards can only stay out
so long, and we don’t have enough cold-weather clothing for
everyone,” pointed out Saryn.

   “We have wool and thread and
needles,” said Ayrlyn.

   Nylan cleared his throat. “We
could dry some of the wood near the furnace, and we need a lot of
furnishings-tables, even dressers.”

   “We don’t have that
many nails,” said Ryba.

   “They used to put things
together with pegs. We can do that,” Ayrlyn pointed out.
“It takes more time, but we’re going to have a lot
of time.”

   “You can make glue,”
added Relyn. “The crafters dry and grind hooves, I think, and
some parts of the hides and boil them.”

   “Arms practice. For everyone. I
don’t want a tower full of crafters come spring,”
added Ryba. “They’ll have to be better than any of
the locals when the battles resume.”

   “I think archery is
out,” said Nylan.

   “Because of the weather? No.
There will be enough clear days…”

   “The clear days are cold enough
to a freeze a man’s lungs,” said Relyn.

   “Woolen scarves would
help,” Ayrlyn said, “but you’d have to
hold down heavy exertion and mouth breathing.”

   “We’ll take it as it
comes.” Ryba broke off a chunk of bread.
“There’s a lot we can do to get ready for next
spring and summer.”

   “How are we going to get around
in this stuff?” asked Huldran, with a gesture toward the
window. “We don’t have skis or sleds or sled
dogs.”

   “Slowly,” says
Hryessa. “In the lower Westhorns, the snow gets deeper than a
horse’s head.”

   “Snowshoes,” Ryba
said, “and old-fashioned wooden skis with leather thongs,
just like Gerlich and Saryn have been making.”

   Nylan frowned. Would he have to learn to
ski? He didn’t look forward to that at all, not at all.

   “Have you ever
skied?” Ayrlyn asked him.

   “No. I never saw the joy of
slogging through powdered ice for fun.”

   “I can learn it, and
I’m not even Sybran,” insisted Ayrlyn.
“I’m mostly Svennish. You’re at least
half Sybran, aren’t you?”

   “About half and half. It gets
complicated. But my grandfather Weryl was a Svenn. He came to Heaven as
a boy. Does that make me more Sybran than if he’d come as an
adult?” Nylan laughed. “He didn’t ski,
either.”

   “Was he a blond, too,
ser?” asked Istril. “Like you used to be?”

   “I think so. He died when I was
little.”

   “Just because he
didn’t ski doesn’t mean you
can’t,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “Especially since
you’ll have to if you want to go anywhere in the
wintertime,” added Ryba.

   “You make it sound so
attractive. I’ll have to.” Nylan frowned.
“Either freeze or be stranded in the tower.”

   “It’s not that
bad,” said Saryn.

   As Nylan thought about a response, he saw
Istril hurry from the table, toward the north door, and disappear. Her
bread was untouched.

   “You’ll like
it,” added Ryba.

   Ayrlyn gave a quick grin.

   Nylan took a sip of tea, warm tea, and
wondered just how badly he would freeze learning to get around on
wooden slats.

 

 

XLVI

 

IN HER GREEN tunic and trousers, her hair bound back in a
green and black enameled hairband, Zeldyan steps into the tower room.
After closing the door, she bows deeply to the lady Ellindyja.
“Honor and greetings to you, lady.”

   “You are now the Lady of
Lornth, and I am honored,” answers Ellindyja. She does not
rise from the cushioned bench in the alcove, but lowers the embroidery
hoop to her lap. “Your grace in coming to visit so soon shows
great respect for your lord, and I am pleased to see that.”

   “I respect Sillek, more than
most would ever know. You are my consort’s mother, and, out
of my deep respect for him, always to be honored and
respected,” says Zeldyan, inclining her head to Ellindyja
again.

   “I am so pleased to be included
in your respects, dear, especially since your mother has always been
one of my dearest friends.” Ellindyja knots the yellow-green
thread with deft motions, and takes up the needle.

   “She would count you among her
dearest and most trusted friends,” answers Zeldyan, stepping
toward the alcove where Sillek’s mother begins an embroidered
leaf on the white linen. “And a wise woman.”

   “Wise? I would think
not,” says Ellindyja as the needle completes another loop of
green comprising the leaf. “For my son has less of his
heritage than his father.”

   “I am confident that situation
will change, my lady, and that the greatness of Lornth will
increase.”

   “With enemies on three sides,
Lady Zeldyan?”

   “While I would certainly defer
to those who understand arms and other weapons far better than I do, I
have great faith in my lord Sillek.” Zeldyan pauses.
“And great faith that you will offer counsel to
him.”

   “I have always attempted to be
of service to the Lords of Lornth, to his father, and to
Sillek.” Ellindyja completes the small leaf, knots the
thread, and rethreads the needle with crimson.

   The faint whine of the late fall wind
rattles the closed tower window, but neither woman looks to it.

   “And you have,”
responds Zeldyan. “You surely have.”

   “Thank you, my dear.”
Ellindyja knots the crimson thread and makes the first stitch in the
small segment of the linen that will be a drop of blood. “I
understand that your father has remained here in Lornth for a
time.”

   “He plans to leave for Carpa
tomorrow, now that he has seen me safely joined to Sillek.”

   “And your mother?”

   “She will arrive to see you
presently. I prevailed upon her to allow me a few moments with you to
convey my respects.”

   “You know, my dear, Sillek may
have been even wiser than I had thought. Together we might be of great
assistance to him.” The crimson stitches bring the hint of
arterial blood to the linen.

   “My lord Sillek respects you
greatly, Lady Ellindyja, and I would prefer not to intrude upon that
bond or that trust. I would be most happy for any and all advice that
you might have.”

   “As I said, Lady Zeldyan,
Sillek chose wisely.” Ellindyja’s voice is dry, but
she holds the needle still for a moment. “I would trust that
you might pay some heed to the possibility of ensuring the succession
of Lornth.”

   Zeldyan bows slightly. “I would
like nothing better, my lady.”

   A muffled thrap sounds on the door.

   “That would be your mother, I
presume?”

   “Yes, my lady.”

   “If you would be so kind as to
bid her enter?” Ellindyja’s needle flashes again as
Zeldyan steps toward the door.

   “But, of course. She has looked
forward to seeing you for some seasons.” Zeldyan smiles and
opens the door.

   “Cakes and sweets should be
arriving shortly,” announces Ellindyja, “for the
three of us. I had hoped we might converse.” She stands and
sets aside the embroidery hoop. “Erenthla!”

   The heavier white-haired woman bends
forward and brushes Zeldyan’s cheek with her lips before
stepping fully into the room and responding. “Ellindyja, I am
so pleased to see you.”

   Zeldyan closes the door and, with a faint
smile, stands, waiting.

Part  II - THE WINTER

 

 

XLVII

 

As HE WALKED back from the bathhouse, and the jakes he was
getting gladder and gladder about having completed, Nylan pulled down
the ship jacket that had a tendency to ride up over the lined leather
trousers. The lining consisted of the synthetic material left from his
tattered work shipsuit, inexpertly stitched in place. The combination
was warmer than the shipsuit, and certainly less drafty.

   In the archway between the bathhouse and
the tower, just before the closed north door, ice was already forming
on the walls, from the collected and frozen condensation of the breath
of those who passed through, and from the moisture coming from the
completed showers.

   “Too far from the furnace or
the water-heating stove.” The engineer opened the north door
and then closed it behind him, his fingers tingling from the chill
metal latch-not quite cold enough to freeze skin to it.

   He could sense the residual warmth from
the furnace ducts as he walked into the great room, although he could
tell from the lack of air motion that no logs had been added to the
firebox recently.

   He stopped at the staircase when he saw
Ayrlyn bent over her lutar. For a time, he listened to the soft words
which she half-sang, half-hummed.

   On the Roof of the World, all covered
with white,

   I took up my blade there, and I brought
back the night.

   With a blade in each hand, there, and the
stars at my boots,

   With the Legend in song, then, I set down
my roots.

 

   The demons have claimed you, forever in
light,

   But the darkness of order will put them
to flight.

   Will break them in twain, soon, and
return you your pride.

   For the Legend is kept by the blade at
your side.

 

   The blade at your side, now, must always
be bright,

   and the Legend we hold to is that of the
right.

   For never will guards lose the heights of
the sky,

   And never can Westwind this Legend
deny…

   And never can Westwind this Legend deny.

 

   The words echoed softly in the great
room, and the wind that hurled the snow against the shutters and
windows supplied a backdrop of off-rhythm percussion.

   The four armaglass windows in the great
hall provided the only exterior light, and that illumination was
diminished by the storm and the snow that had gathered in the outside
window ledges and half covered each with snow. Snow sifted through the
windows that had but shutters and built into miniature drifts on the
stone ledges, drifts occasionally swirled by the gusts that forced
their way around the edges of the shutters and sent thin tendrils of
freezing air across the room.

   Nylan waited until Ayrlyn stopped and
looked up before he spoke. “That’s a haunting
melody.”

   “It should carry the words well
enough.” Ayrlyn’s voice was cool, measured.
“That’s what she wants.”

   “Ryba?” Nylan eased
himself onto the bench on the other side of the table from the redhead.

   “Who else wants songs? Most
people work on firewood, food”-she laughed
softly-“or bathhouses and towers. I still have to do other
things. Skis are what Saryn and I have been doing, but the song comes
first, or, at least, not last.” Ayrlyn paused. “You
haven’t made your skis or even tried skiing. That’s
going to make it hard on you. Even Siret’s been out, and in
her condition, balancing isn’t easy.”

   “Do I have to?”

   “Of course not. You can stay
inside all winter or walk the two trails we can keep packed.
Anyway… I wish I could have spent more time learning the
skiing, but Ryba wanted the songs.”

   The engineer frowned.
“She’s trying to build a culture, in a
hurry.”

   “I don’t object to
that. Songs have always been part of any culture, and we need some sort
of verbal reminder…” Ayrlyn paused. “I
just don’t know that I like what I’m doing. The
words are as much hers as mine, and… I just don’t
know.”

   “The guards seem to like
them.”

   “Do you?”

   The directness of the question stopped
Nylan, and he pulled at his chin, then licked his lips. Finally, he
answered. “They’re too harsh.” Then he
shrugged. “But people only respond to strength, or force,
whether that force is in song or a blade.”

   “Whether they’re
angels or demons.”

   Nylan nodded.

   “So the great marshal will use
every tool offeree necessary.”

   “I don’t see that
we’ve had much choice. Mran, Gerlich, Relyn,
bandits… all of them wanted to force things their
way.”

   “That’s a sad comment
on so-called intelligent beings.” Ayrlyn glanced toward the
stairwell. “So… I’ll sing this one
tonight, after the evening meal. It should please the
marshal.”

   “You’re
angry.”

   “It doesn’t matter,
does it? She’s right. This world needs changing. Even I see
that. What if I’m just a tool in the process?”

   “We’re all
tools.”

   “You like that?”
asked the redhead.

   “No. But you have to survive
before you can get beyond being a tool. I just haven’t
figured out how to get that far.”

   Ayrlyn shook her head.
“I’ll see you later, fellow tool. Now that this
task is done, it’s back to the mundane business of crafting
and carving skis.” Ayrlyn stood. “You too should
join us.”

   “In what?”

   “Making skis and learning to
use them.”

   “Me? I’ve never
skied.”

   “If you don’t want to
be walled behind these stones all winter, you’d better learn,
and you can’t learn if you don’t have
skis.” Ayrlyn picked up the lutar. “It might make
it less necessary for you to be a tool.”

   “That’s a great
choice. Be imprisoned for half the year or learn to do the unnatural in
the middle of powdered ice so cold that walking over it will freeze
your breath into ice crystals.”

   “It’s a
choice.” Ayrlyn lifted her eyebrows, before heading toward
the stairwell.

   It was a choice. Not the best of choices,
but a choice, like all the other choices that seemed to face Nylan.

   As Ayrlyn carried her lutar down the
stairs to the lower level, another set of steps sounded, coming from
the bathhouse. Nylan waited, watched, until Relyn stepped into the
great room.

   “I hoped I would find you,
mage.”

   Nylan gestured to the table.
“Sit down.” He sat without waiting for Relyn to do
so.

   Relyn eased onto the bench, actually
using the blunt, half-hooked end of the metal hand to balance, although
Nylan caught the wince as the other put too much pressure on the
still-tender stump.

   “That replacement will take
getting used to, I’m afraid,” Nylan said.
“And it will probably be cold outside unless you cover it.
The metal will pick up the chill. I didn’t think about that
when I crafted it.”

   Relyn waited for a moment, saying
nothing. As the wind rattled the shutters, and more snow sifted onto
the inner casement ledges of the windows, he finally spoke.
“The hunter… he says that you are not really a
mage. Is that true?” Relyn struggled with the Sybran/Heaven
Temple tongue.

   “Gerlich?” Nylan
shrugged. “That depends on what you mean by a mage. Can I
throw firebolts the way your wizards can? No. Can I tear apart things?
No. If that’s what you mean by a mage, I’m not, and
I never said I was.”

   Relyn pursed his lips. “You
made those devil blades that cut through armor, did you not?”
Half his words were Old Anglorat. “And you used the flame of
the angels?”

   “I did, but that’s a
form of machine, not magic.”

   “The singer, she says that you
used magery to twist the flame in a way that no one else
could.”

   “I suppose that’s
true,” Nylan admitted. “And I can use that ability
to chisel stone a little more easily.”

   “I saw you carve that hard
black stone like it might be wood. No stoneworker I have seen could do
that.”

   “Does a name matter?”

   “Names are
important,” insisted Relyn.

   “Are they?” asked
Nylan. “Substance lies in what is, not what people
say.”

   Relyn frowned. “Words cause
people to act. If someone calls you evil angels, then that gives others
a reason to destroy you.”

   “That’s
true,” Nylan admitted, “but only when you talk
about inspiring people to act. Their actions cause destruction, not the
words directly. All the words in the world will not make me into a
white wizard. All the words in the world will not bring back your
hand.”

   “I do not know about
that…” Relyn muses. “Do not the white
wizards whisper incantations to bring about their actions? Did I not
hear you talk to yourself when you guided the green flames of
order?”

   “Did you not talk to yourself
when you practiced with the blade?” countered Nylan.
“The actions matter, not the words which surround
them… although words can certainly inspire
actions.” He cleared his throat, then paused as a violent
gust of wind rattled the windows and shutters and shivered the great
south door on its heavy iron hinges. “That’s often
the problem with rulers. They move people with their words, and because
they do, they believe that they can use words to change the physical
world. They can change people’s minds and feelings, but
unless those people use shovels and some form of power, the words will
not move the mountains.” As he finished, the engineer looked
down at the table. “I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t talk so much.”

   “You are a mage, a different
mage, but a mage, and how will I learn about what you do if I do not
listen? I can see your actions”-Relyn lifted the artificial
metal hand-“but not your thoughts.”

   “I’m not sure that my
thoughts are terribly important.” Nylan laughed.
“The marshal’s perhaps, but not mine.”

   “She thinks great and terrible
thoughts, I fear.”

   Nylan thought the same of
Ryba’s thoughts, but he only answered, “She does
think great thoughts, and she will change this world.”

   “So will you, Mage.”

   “Me? Only so far
as…” Nylan stopped. “I do not think
so.”

   Relyn laughed. “More so than
you think.” He stood. “But I must think more.
Thinking is harder than the blade.”

   Nylan frowned.
“There’s no reason why you couldn’t
re-learn the blade with your other hand. Saryn could certainly teach
you.”

   Relyn paused. “A left-handed
blade?”

   “No worse than a black
mage,” countered Nylan.

   Relyn laughed harshly, then turned.

   As the former noble walked toward the
stairwell and up the steps, Nylan glanced back at the now-empty tables
and the cold hearth. After a moment, he crossed the great room and
headed down to the tower’s lowest level.

   In the kitchen, the heat radiated from
the stove where the long loaves of bread baked. Nylan took a deep
breath, enjoying the aroma. Kyseen and Kadran worked at the blocky
worktable, its surface already marked with the imprints of knives,
slicing potatoes into circles and dropping them into the largest
caldron. Both wore rough shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Kyseen set
down her knife and, taking a pad made of rags, opened the stove grate,
easing in two chunks of wood, one after the other.

   “We’ll need to saw
some more small stove wood,” Kyseen told Kadran, checking the
coals in the stove, with the door open.

   More heat welled out into the lower
level, enough that Nylan, even by the foot of the stairs, could feel
himself getting warm and dampness on his forehead. He unfastened the
light ship jacket.

   “It’s your
turn,” Kadran said back to Kyseen.

   “All right.”

   Cloaks wrapped around them, Narliat,
Hryessa, and Murkassa stood in the alcove between the side of the stove
and the central stairwell.

   “Narliat, and you two-you could
do some woodcutting,” suggested Nylan. “It might
even warm you up.”

   “Friggin‘
right,” whispered Kyseen to Kadran, who nodded.

   “Kyseen will show you what to
do,” Nylan suggested, before heading toward the other side of
the lower level and the rudimentary carpentry which awaited him.
Carpentry? He really didn’t have that much of a feel for
wood, but he had no real tools for working metal. By the next winter,
he really should think about building another structure, a small smithy
where he could learn, one way or another, more traditional
metalworking. Even with his ordering ability, he suspected it would be
a long summer and hard work, but there were too many tools and items
that Westwind needed-and too few coins to purchase them. On the other
hand, with the lander shells, there was metal, even if it did take his
strange ability to work it.

   Ayrlyn gave him a crooked smile as he
stepped toward the planks.

   “Where do I start?”
he asked, repressing a shudder at the thought of trying to cross deep
powdery snow on a pair of carved boards.

 

 

XLVIII

 

WITH A NOD to the guard in the corridor, the Lord of Lornth
closes the tower door and crosses the room to the alcove where the lady
Ellindyja sits.

   “Good day, my lady
mother.”

   “Good day, Sillek. You are kind
to continue to visit me.”

   “Since I have a consort? You
will always remain my mother, and a woman from whom I have learned
much.” As the wind whistles, he turns and eases back toward
the window. “The wind is stronger than usual, this time of
year.”

   “It may be a cold winter.
It’s not been this cold in several years.”
Ellindyja’s eyes drop to the embroidery hoop. “I
hope it will not be too chill for your consort.”

   “Zeldyan? Carpa is almost as
close to the Westhorns as Lornth, and farther north. I’m sure
she’s used to winter. Her father did teach her to hunt and
basic blade skills.”

   “She is rather
accomplished.” Ellindyja pauses, but Sillek’s eyes
drift back to the window. She clears her throat. “Sillek,
your Zeldyan has been such a dear… so solicitous and so
faithful in paying her respects to me.”

   Sillek turns from the fitful flakes of
snow that dance outside the tower window and crosses the room, dropping
into the chair across from his mother. “She knows that you
are very wise. She’s told me so.”

   “She loves you, Sillek. That is
very dangerous.” Ellindyja lifts the embroidery needle like a
scepter and points it toward her son.

   “Dangerous?”

   “She cares so deeply that she
may counsel you against what is best for Lornth out of her fears for
you.” Ellindyja deftly secures the end of the thread, then
begins the first stitch of the sword blade that will be golden.

   “I am sure that there are many
who will seek to counsel me otherwise,” Sillek responds.
“It might be refreshing to have someone actually interested
in my health. Not necessarily good for Lornth, but
refreshing.”

   “What would be good for Lornth
will be good for you, Sillek.”

    “I would hope so.”
The Lord of Lornth stands. “I would hope so.” His
eyes turn back to the window. “Perhaps a long, cold winter
will rid us of the evil angels on the Roof of the World.”

   “Do you believe
that?” The embroidery needle flickers through the linen,
trailing gold.

   “Evil isn’t usually
dislodged by weather. Still… one can hope, and, since spring
comes late to the heights, that will give us time to increase our
resources before dealing with that problem.”

   “I am pleased to see you have
not put that loss from your mind.”

   “Neither from my mind, nor from
my plans, Mother dear. But I have no desire to leave my back unshielded
while venturing into the Westhorns.” Sillek studies the
dancing flakes beyond the window. “Yes… a long,
cold winter might be helpful for many reasons.” He walks
toward the door.

   “I am pleased that you are
doing well, that you have chosen not to be cloistered, and that Zeldyan
pleases you.” He smiles as he holds the door ajar.
“And I am also pleased that I took your advice and journeyed
to Carpa.” With a last smile, he half salutes Lady Ellindyja
and closes the door.

   The north wind rattles the tower window,
and the snowflakes dance.

 

 

XLIX

 

CARRYING THE SKIS and the fir poles with the leather straps at
one end out through the south door to the tower, Nylan followed Ayrlyn
and Saryn up the beaten path toward the stables for several hundred
cubits. Where the ground dropped away from the path on the south side,
there was a ramp packed through the waist-deep snow, rising gently from
the path for perhaps fifty cubits before the ramp merged with the snow.
Beyond that point, the snow, swirled in drifts, generally dropped away
toward the east.

   The cairns down in the south corner of
the snow-covered meadow were white hummocks with drifts extending
almost to the drop-off that overlooked the forest far below. A light
wind blew across the snowfieid, lifting and swirling the top powdered
snow under a bright sun that gave no warmth and a clear green-blue
heaven that seemed to suck the heat out of the engineer, despite the
two jackets and heavy woolen scarf he wore.

   Nylan set the skis on the flat part of
the packed snow ramp, following Ayrlyn’s example, and looked
along the ramp that sloped gently upward through the walls of snow. A
half-dozen dual ski tracks fanned out from the end of the ramp onto the
snowfield.

   “Who’s been out
already?” Despite the scarf around his nose and mouth,
Nylan’s breath formed white clouds in the air, and he could
feel the ice forming on the wool of the scarf. As he watched, the ice
crystals that had been Saryn’s breath fluttered to the
powdery surface of the packed snow.

   “Gerlich, the
hunters,” answered Saryn, “and Fierral, Ryba, and
the scouts.”

   If Gerlich could master old-style skis,
then Nylan could, he decided, as he bent down and fastened the leather
thongs around his boots, boots lined with wool scraps and bulging
somewhat at the tops. He had to take off the outer layer of his gloves
because they were really leather mittens covering woolen gloves, and he
couldn’t handle the leather thongs with the fingerless
mittens. Neither mittens nor the gloves beneath fit terribly well,
since he’d done the cutting and stitching himself.

   “Ready?” asked Saryn.

   Nylan straightened and pulled the leather
mittens back over his gloves, then took a pole in each hand.

   “If I can do this, you
can,” said Saryn, slowly gliding up the ramp.

   “Let’s hope
so,” Nylan muttered, but he followed her example and, one
pole in each hand, slowly slid the left wooden ski forward. Each ski
felt like a building timber, but Ayrlyn had insisted that the skis
needed to be wide and long because the snow on the Roof of the World
was light and powdery.

   As he tried to slide the right ski after
the left one, he could feel himself lurching forward, and he leaned
back to compensate. Then his left ski started sliding backward, and he
jabbed a pole into the packed snow of the ramp, wobbling there before
catching his balance.

   “Start with slow
movements,” suggested Saryn, “and keep your weight
forward-not too forward-on the skis.”

   “I’ve always tried
not to be too forward,” Nylan retorted, ignoring the cold air
that bit into his nose, throat, and lungs.

   “Slow movements, one ski at a
time,” ordered Ayrlyn.

   Nylan inched the left ski forward, then
the right, then the left until he had crept up the ramp to where the
packed area ended. Squinting against the brightness of the sun, he
looked out over the nearly flat and powdered snow that covered the
meadows more than waist-deep.

   “Just follow in my
tracks,” Ayrlyn instructed.

   Nylan edged after the redhead, though her
hair and most of her face were well swathed in a gray woolen scarf.

   Despite his best efforts, his skis
skidded out of the tracks Ayrlyn had made, then sank to knee depth. As
the snow piled up in front of his shins, he slowed to a stop. When he
shifted his weight, the skis sank even farther until the snow reached
his knees.

   “Making the first trail is the
hardest,” called Saryn from beside him, “especially
if you’re moving slowly. Speed helps-until you fall, and then
it’s a mess.”

   Looking at the snow that covered his skis
completely and most of his lower legs, Nylan decided it was already a
mess. “Just put one ski in front of the other. Make it a
sliding sort of walk.”

   That Nylan could understand, and the
process seemed to work, enough so that he actually had covered several
hundred cubits, mostly staying in the trail Ayrlyn had cut through the
snow.

   “That’s
it,” the singer called. “Just keep up that
motion.” At that moment, Nylan reached too far forward with
his right pole, lost his balance, flailed, and went down in a heap, his
entire upper body plunging through the powdery white crystals until a
gloved hand slammed against something hard.

   He lay in the snow, his feet pinned
together by the skis, breathing both chill air and snow crystals that
had oozed around his scarf.

   “Straighten your
skis.”

   “How?” he mumbled
through the snow. Finally, he levered his upper body sideways, since
his skis would not move, until his legs could separate slightly. Then
he bent his knees and curled up into a ball as close to the skis as he
could. That allowed him to rock himself over into a half-crouching,
half-kneeling position. From there he struggled upright, his
snow-covered face finally emerging into the glare, the snow almost
chest-deep.

   His skis felt mired, but he lifted each
in turn, letting snow filter under each, climb-packing his way up until
he stood on the skis-merely knee-deep in the powder that leached the
heat out of his legs and feet.

   “See… you can get
out of it,” said Saryn.

   “This time,” snorted
Nylan, trying to brush the snow off himself, snow that clung to
everything but the leather trousers and packed itself into every bodily
crevice.

   He started after Ayrlyn even more
cautiously than before, then stopped as he saw a pair of figures
sweeping from the ridge line above the tower.

   Istril and Ryba skied slowly downward, a
rope tied to a bundle they towed. As they neared, each leaving a
graceful dual line of ski traces in the snow, Nylan could see the
bundle consisted of a pale-coated winter deer.

   He also marveled at their grace, doubting
that he would ever match it. Part of him never wanted to try as the
snow melted in cold rivulets down his neck, back, and legs. He forced a
wave to the two skiers.

   “There’s the
engineer!” Istril returned his wave.

   As he started to follow
Ayrlyn’s tracks again, in a turn that would carry him back
toward the packed trail the horses used, Nylan found himself again
wobbling on the skis, conscious that the leather thongs provided no
real support. He jabbed his poles back down to balance himself and let
himself slide to a halt.

   “Watch your balance,”
said Saryn, nearly beside the engineer, making her own track, the
powdery snow nearly to her knees.

   “That’s easy to say.
Doing it is a lot harder.”

   Istril and Ryba had towed the deer
carcass to the tower, unfastened their skis, and lugged their kill and
skis inside long before Nylan struggled the few hundred cubits back to
the tower.

   “That’s enough for
today,” he declared. Maybe forever, he thought, as he
gathered skis and poles and trudged back across the causeway. He left a
trail of snow and water down to the storeroom beside the furnace, and
on the steps on his return trip back up to the great room for the
midday meal.

   Nylan slumped onto the bench before the
hearth, aware that he was sitting in damp trousers. His upper cheeks
were nearly flaming red, and his ears ached as they warmed. They
hadn’t been out in the cold that long-except it appeared that
the Roof of the World was even colder than a Sybran winter-and that was
cold, indeed.

   Although there was no fire in the hearth,
the great room was warm by comparison to the frozen wasteland outside,
and the bark-and-root tea helped. He poured a second mugful.

   “You drank that
quickly,” said Ryba. “You would too, if
you’d dived into a snowbank and gotten stuck there.”

   “You wouldn’t have
had that problem,” pointed out Ryba, “if
you’d started trying to learn earlier.”

   Nylan took another sip of the tea. Ayrlyn
had already told him as much, far earlier, and he supposed he deserved
the reminder, but skiing was a pain, however necessary it might prove.

   Ryba raised her eyebrows.

   “How were the bows in the
cold?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.

   “The bows are really good in
the cold,” Istril said from the foot of the first table.

   Nylan nodded. While he hadn’t
thought about that, both the composite and the endurasteel had been
designed to handle the chill of space and the heat of high-temperature
reentry, which would make them ideal for the chill of the winter on the
Roof of the World.

   “Gerlich’s already
snapped one of his great wooden bows in the cold,” Istril
added in a lower voice, after looking around and not seeing the hunter.
“I’ll bet the new bows would be really good in
cold-weather warfare.”

   “Is anyone else crazy enough to
be out in this weather?” asked Nylan.

   “Well…
they’re good for hunting, too. Even Fierral thinks so, and
she’s pretty hard on everything.”

   “Is there that much out in the
woods?”

   “More than you’d
suspect, from the tracks, and that’s good for us. You saw the
deer. That’s a couple of meals, at least, even for twenty of
us. There’s also a snow cat, almost all white, with big
spread paws and claws. I don’t know how good the meat is, but
I’d bet the fur is warm.”

   Nylan nodded. After his brief excursion,
a warm coat sounded better than wool or a ship jacket, a lot better.

 

 

L

 

NYLAN FASTENED THE ship jacket and pulled on the crudely lined
boots that he wore everywhere, even inside the tower. His fingers
crossed his stubbly chin, but the chill was so great, even with the
heat from the bathhouse stove, that he had not shaved, but only washed
his face and hands, before hurrying back up to the tower’s
top level to dress for the cold day ahead.

   The heat from the furnace removed the
biting chill of the wind that howled outside the tower’s
walls, but Nylan’s breath turned into a frosty cloud when he
stepped away from the heated center of the tower and up to the sole
top-level armaglass window to check the sealing. He half rubbed, half
scraped away the frost to look outside, but cold air rolled off the
glass, and frost re-formed almost as fast as he removed it. Through the
little area he could keep clear, he could only see white-white and more
white.

   For more than two days, the white barrage
had continued, and Nylan wasn’t certain how much of the snow
was new and how much just snow picked up by the roaring wind and
flung-and reflung-against the walls.

   Most of the exterior tower walls had a
spotty coating of ice on the inside stone, except in the kitchen and
the furnace room. Kyseen and Kadran had plenty of guards-especially the
newer ones-ready to saw and split wood in return for a place around the
stove. The number of people willing to work on partitions and stools,
or other wooden necessities, in the workroom off the furnace had never
been higher. Could it be the warmth? Nylan grinned at the thought, even
as he readied himself to head down to join them.

   Ryba was below somewhere; she
hadn’t said where she was going, but, with the storm still
going, she was somewhere in the tower.

   A figure huddled by the furnace duct on
the fifth level. Nylan paused on the steps. “Relyn?”

   “Ser?” The red-haired
man stood with his cloak wrapped around him. “A man can never
get warm here. It’s too cold to do anything except be
miserable, and just warm enough so that you never quite
freeze.” He jerked his head toward the single shuttered
window. “I can’t even leave. Twenty steps in that,
and they’d find me frozen in a block of ice come
spring.”

   Nylan sat on a step, and Relyn sat on the
other edge.

   “Why are you up
here?” asked the engineer.

   “It’s the only place
where I can be alone. Sometimes…” Relyn shook his
head.

   “I’m surprised that
you haven’t gotten close to one of the guards.”

   “It is…
hard… to think about, as you put it, getting close to
someone who could kill you with one blow.”

   “Why?” asked Nylan.
“Anyone you sleep with anywhere could kill you.”

   “You always bring up disturbing
points, Mage. At home, when I had a home, should anyone have killed me,
they would have been tortured and then killed.”

   “If anyone killed you here,
she’d be punished. What’s the difference?”

   “It is different,”
pointed out Relyn.

   “I suppose so. Here you have to
trust someone else, under a… ruler… you
don’t know. I think that means you’ve never really
trusted anyone.” Nylan stood up.

   “Mage… were you in
Carpa, I would challenge you.”

   “For what? Is the truth so
terrible? Most people with power always say they trust people, and what
they mean is that they only trust them so long as they control them.
True trust occurs only when you have no control.”

   “I’d rather have
control.”

   “We all would… but
even that’s an illusion a lot of the time.” Nylan
recalled Ryba’s struggle with her visions. “Even
for rulers. If a ruler taxes his people too heavily, some will revolt,
and he must kill them.”

   “As he should,”
declared Relyn.

   “But dead men pay no taxes, and
now the ruler must tax the others more heavily to pay the soldiers
because there are fewer men to tax. And he will need more soldiers
because people will be even more unhappy. More soldiers require even
more taxes, and that makes people even less happy. Do you see where
that leads?”

   “But…”
Relyn looked up at Nylan.

   “Control is not what it seems,
young Relyn. If you kill a man, you make an enemy out of his family.
How many enemies can a ruler afford? Do you see the marshal eating
better food than her guards?”

   “No.”

   “Does she wear jewels or great
trappings of wealth?”

   “No.”

   “Will her guards follow her
anywhere?”

   “I think they would.”

   Nylan smiled. “Think it
over.” He walked down the steps, wondering why he had
bothered. What he had said would certainly have upset anyone in
Relyn’s position, and the young noble was probably very
upset. But what good had it done? His head throbbed slightly. Why?
Because what he’d said wasn’t quite true? Ryba did
have one thing the others didn’t-power. It might be power out
of necessity, but it was power. Nylan shook his head. He
couldn’t even present provoking thoughts that might be
misleading without getting a headache, or so it seemed.

   Nylan rubbed his forehead as he walked
down the steps past the great room, empty.except for Ayrlyn, gently
strumming the lutar-probably refining or working on another song. He
paused for a moment, watching the redhead struggle with a chord or a
phrase, but she did not look his way.

   He turned toward the south door, where
chill winds seeped through the cracks, and a fine layer of snow covered
the stones behind the door, shifting with each gust that buffeted the
tower.

   Nylan resumed his descent, thinking about
the cradle he was crafting. But Dyliess would need somewhere to sleep,
and a cradle made sense.

 

 

LI

 

FROM THE INNER corner of the room wells the warmth of a
well-banked fire, though Terek still wears a heavy white woolen vest
over his robes. The white wizard’s face is red with strain,
but Sillek ignores the wizard’s effort and studies the image
in the glass on the table.

    In the center of the swirling white
mists is a dark tower, rising out of the snows. A beaten path runs
uphill from the tower toward a canyon in the base of the higher western
slopes. Thin spirals of smoke rise from the twin chimneys in the
pyramidal roof of the black tower.

   A pair of figures in black coats walk
briskly uphill, their breath leaving a thick trail of white. The snow
on each side of the path rises above the heads of either.

   The flat of the snow before the tower is
crossed with sets of flat tracks, ski tracks that spread in all
directions, with some circling back to the short causeway before the
tower. A second packed-snow trail leads to the ridge separating the
tower from the forest below, and a pair of horses drag a tree trunk up
the ridge. Beside them walks a figure bearing a pack.

   “It looks normal,”
observed Sillek.

   “Have you seen enough,
ser?” asks Terek.

   “I think so.”

   The wizard relaxes, and the mists
collapse, leaving a blank glass. “It’s too normal,
ser. That snow is over their heads, and there must be three cubits more
packed underfoot. The air is so cold that their very breath falls like
snow itself, and they walk to check their mounts-those are stables up
in that canyon. Could your armsmen do that?”

   “Not for long.”
Sillek turns to the wizard. “What is your meaning, Ser
Wizard?”

   “They are evil angels, ser.
They must be destroyed, or they will destroy us. No one else could walk
the Roof of the World without freezing into ice.”

   Sillek nods without agreeing.
“Thank you, Ser Wizard. If you discover anything new, please
let me know.”

   “Will you destroy them,
ser?”

   “Ser Terek, as you pointed out,
we can do nothing until the snows melt, and it becomes warm enough for
normal men on the Roof of the World.”

   “Yes, Lord Sillek.”

   “Then we will see what we can
do.” Sillek nods once more as he leaves the warm quarters of
the wizard. His face is impassive as he walks the long corridor and
climbs another flight of stairs.

   The guard opens the door to his quarters,
and he closes it, stepping quietly past the sitting room to the
bedchamber where Zeldyan sits in a chair, knitting a small blanket.

   She smiles and stands, setting aside her
work. “You look glum, Sillek.”

   The Lord of Lornth hugs his consort,
feeling the beginning of a gentle rounding of her figure against him.
“How are you doing?”

   “Fine. I can feel him
kick.” Zeldyan smiles as they separate.

   “How can you? You’re
not that far along.”

   “I can. It’s gentle,
but he does kick.”

   “You always call the child
‘him.’ ”

   “That’s because he
is, and we’ll call him-”

   “Hush. That’s bad
luck, to name a child before he’s born.”

   “As you say.” Zeldyan
grins. “Why were you so displeased?”

   “I had asked Terek to scree the
Roof of the World. My mother has again pressed the issue. Now Terek is
pressing me to attack the Roof of the World. No one else but evil
angels could survive that cold.” Sillek shrugs. “No
one else built a huge stone tower with hearths up there, either, but he
says that those women must be destroyed, that they’re too
evil to live.”

   “Are they?”

   “What do you think?”
he counters, glancing back toward the closed doors.

   “They’re probably no
more evil than anyone else. They come from somewhere else, and they
have nowhere else to go.” Zeldyan smiles momentarily before
continuing. “Like those who have nowhere else to go, they
will fight to the last to keep what they have. That will make them very
dangerous.”

   “It already has,” he
points out, looking toward the window and across the light blanket of
snow that has already begun to melt, even though the clouds’
have blocked the winter sun.

   “You have already committed to
undertake the expedition to Rulyarth.” Zeldyan points out.
“Though we must say nothing publicly.”

   “And so I will. If I am
successful, though, the wizards, the believers, and everyone else will
be pushing me…”

   “And your mother,”
Zeldyan adds gently.

   “I know.” He sighs.
“Rulers are always ruled by everyone else’s
expectations.”

   Zeldyan steps close to him and takes his
face in her gentle hands. “Even I have expectations,
love.” Her lips brush his.

   “Yours I can handle,”
he whispers and returns the kiss.

 

 

LII

 

DESPITE THE HEAVY woolen blanket that covered the thin thermal
blanket and the crude but heavy woolen nightshirt he wore, Nylan was
cold. A thin layer of crystals from his own breath scattered off the
blanket as he sat up. The room was dark, with only the hint of gray
seeping through the thoroughly frosted single armaglass window,
although Nylan knew, alerted by the sounds drifting up the steps from
the great room, that it was late enough. Another storm had descended
upon the Roof of the World, with yet more snow.

   As if to punctuate his conclusion, the
wind provided a low howl, and the window casements rattled. A few fine
flakes sifted around the iced-over shutters as Nylan sat on the edge of
the couch and stared at the peg holding clothes he knew would feel like
ice against his skin.

   “Don’t take the
covers,” said Ryba. “It is cold up here.”

   “Another furnace day.”

   .“It’s been a furnace
day every day for the last eight-day, and we’re running
through wood all too fast. Fierral’s coughing out her lungs
because she spent too much time in the cold. Istril’s not
that much better, and I worry because she’s
pregnant.”

   “Ayrlyn helped them
both.”

   “There’s a limit to
what she can do, though.”

   “Just like there are limits on
the way you seem to be able to see pieces of the future,”
Nylan pointed out.

   Ryba sat up on the couch and swirled the
covers around her. “I hate feeling this awkward.”

   “You don’t look
awkward,” Nylan pointed out as he struggled into his clothes.
He’d wash later. That bothered him, too, that even for him
cleanliness was falling behind the need to keep warm.

   “Dyliess is already affecting
my balance. My bladder already went.” The marshal of Westwind
slipped to her feet. “I hate wearing this thing like a tent.
At least I can still get into my leathers. Darkness knows how long that
will last.”

   “I’m headed
down,” Nylan said. “It might do your image good to
arrive before me.”

   “Thank you, gracious
Marshal.”

   “Oh, Nylan…
it’s just that you’re always too busy to be
punctual. Go get your tea.” Ryba pulled off the woolen gown.
Her midsection was only slightly rounded, and the engineer wanted to
shake his head. Ryba would feel huge while she was slimmer than most
women who weren’t even carrying a child.

   Nylan pulled on his boots and went. He
had not even set foot on the stones of the main level when Kyseen
greeted him.

   “Ser, the cistern’s
not filling. It’s half-full.”

   “It’ll
wait.” Nylan walked to the table, looming out of the gloom
like a rock out of the fog of a harbor.

   “Amazing,” whispered
Gerlich, just loud enough for most to hear. “The engineer
arrived before the marshal.”

   “Amazing? I suppose
so.” Nylan wished he could think quickly enough for a clever
comment.

   “What magic will you create,
Mage, to return the waters to the tower?” asked Narliat.

   “It’s not magic,
Narliat. It’s a stone conduit that’s probably
frozen solid because I didn’t get it buried far enough below
the frost line.” Nylan snapped off a piece of bread and
dipped it in a brown sauce that was left over from dinner the night
before. “I haven’t lived here before, and I had to
guess. No one around here could even build a tower.”

   “But you are a mage.”

   “You said that. I
didn’t.” Nylan took a bite. Both bread and sauce
were cool. Even the tea was lukewarm.

   Across the table from Nylan, Ayrlyn
offered a faint smile of condolence, but said nothing as she sipped her
own tea.

   The insides of the shuttered windows were
masses of ice, created from drifted snow and the condensation from the
guards’ breath. The four true windows were so heavily frosted
that they were solid white. With a shiver, Nylan took a second sip of
the warm tea that didn’t help all that much, then another
mouthful of bread and sauce, followed by the last dried apple slices in
the wooden bowl. The single fat candle on the table shed as much greasy
smoke as light.

   “I’ll be getting a
few more apples for the marshal, ser,” said Kyseen,
“and you can have a few, too.”

   “Thank you,” said the
engineer, although he wondered why he should be thanking her because
the early birds had eaten everything.

   The fruit had not made its way up to the
table by the time Ryba sat down heavily in the chair with her back to
the cold hearth.

   “You seem tired,
Marshal,” offered Gerlich.

   Narliat smiled. From the middle of the
second table, both Hryessa and Murkassa looked at Ryba and then at
Gerlich. Ayrlyn frowned.

   “I am tired,” Ryba
admitted. “I’m especially tired of your superficial
cheerfulness, and I’m almost tempted to send you out hunting
at this very moment. So don’t push it.”

   Nylan held in a grin.

   “I beg your pardon,”
Gerlich responded.

   “No, you don’t. You
just say you do,” said Ryba politely. “Snakes have
more integrity than you do, Gerlich. So do the demons.”

   Beside Istril, at the far end of the
second table, Relyn paled.

   “You could even say, behind my
back, that I’m in a bitchy mood. That’s a mildly
polite way of putting it.” Ryba smiled. “So the
next time you attempt to patronize me, you might have to eat steel or
ice. You can take your pick.”

   Kyseen hovered behind Nylan, holding the
small bowl of dried fruit, waiting until Ryba turned to the cook and
nodded. Kyseen set the bowl between Ryba and Nylan.

   “Thank you, Kyseen,”
said the marshal.

   “Thank you,” echoed
Nylan.

   Nylan glanced at Gerlich and caught the
under - the - breath “Thank you, thank you-it makes me
puke…” With a forced smile, Nylan looked at the
hunter and said, “Why, Gerlich, I thought you had better
digestion than that. By the way, the reason I’m usually late
is that I have better things to do than to sneak around and complain
about how things are run around here, or make snide remarks under my
breath. Or go out and hide and sulk in the snow while pretending to
hunt.”

   Narliat turned pale; Gerlich opened his
mouth, and then shut it.

   “You know, Gerlich,”
added Ryba. “You always did underestimate the engineer. In
the end, it’s likely to prove fatal.”

   “Might I be excused?”
Gerlich asked quietly.

   “Of course.” Ryba
smiled.

   Gerlich stood and bowed, but not too
deeply.

   “Your timing was excellent,
Nylan. That should stop his plotting for a time,” said Ryba.
“A day or two, perhaps.”

   “Are you going to kill
him?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “No,” said Ryba.
“There’s been enough death, and that sort of thing
wouldn’t play well with the guards. Not yet.” Her
face held a bitter smile. Then she took a sip of tea. “This
is almost as bad as liquid manure. Almost, but not quite.”

   Nylan took several of the apple slices,
but left most of them for Ryba. She needed them, and so far, he
didn’t. He did refill his mug from the steaming pot that
Kadran set on the table. The bark-and-root tea tasted better hot, or
perhaps he couldn’t taste it so well when it was hot.

   He munched another piece of bread.

   Ayrlyn rose and nodded to the marshal,
then to Nylan. “We’ll be doing a lot of woodwork
for the next few days, ser, and I need to see to the space, and the
glue.”

   Ryba nodded, as did Nylan, since he
didn’t have much choice with a mouth full of dry bread.

   “We have problems with the
water, I understand,” Ryba said after Ayrlyn had departed.

   “I’d guess the frost
line is lower than I’d calculated, but I’ll have to
check now that I’ve eaten and have some strength.”

   “You made such a to-do about
the water…”

   “I know. I know. It’s
all my fault.” With a groan, Nylan rose and headed down to
the lower level and the cistern, Kyseen following closely.

   All the guards in the kitchen area
watched as he neared the cistern. He opened the cover and peered
inside. His eyes saw almost nothing, but his senses could feel that the
inlet pipe was mostly filled with ice. The water level had dropped to
the half-full point, a good two cubits below the stone inlet conduit. A
few drops glistened on the ice-coated inlet spout.

   Nylan extended his senses, attempting to
hold the feeling similar to the neuronet. So far as his senses could
follow the water back up the conduit, he could sense only ice. Finally,
he stepped away from the tower’s cold south wall, leaving the
cover open and turning to Kyseen. “It’s frozen.
Keeping this open might help, but make sure everyone stays away from
it.”

   “Ser?” asked Kyseen.

   “The air here is warmer. It
might help thaw the ice inside. The piping wasn’t deep
enough. I’m pretty sure it’s frozen outside as
well.”

   “What do we do? You
can’t fix it now, can you?” Kyseen made a vague
gesture up the steps toward the heavy lower outer door, which continued
to vibrate, despite the southern exposure and the heavy windbreaks
beyond.

   Beyond the stone walls, the wind howled.

   “We may not be able to fix it
until spring, and that’s a long time,” answered
Nylan. “For now, take the extra caldrons and fill them with
snow. Put them by the furnace. When they melt, pour the water into the
cistern and start over. If we can get the water level up, and warmer,
it might help.”

   “Should we put some on the
stove?”

   “Not until after meals are
cooked, and don’t add any wood to the fire. We really
don’t have enough wood as it is. The tower’s warm
enough down here to melt the snow.”

   Up in the room he and Ryba shared-that
was another story. The center space was warm enough, thanks to the
furnace ducts, but only when the furnace was burning. The shuttered
window had become a mass of immobile ice.

   “What about boiling
water?” asked Kadran.

   “That won’t do any
good until the water level’s up near the inlet spout, and
that means melting a lot of water.”

   “Now what are you going to
do?” demanded Kyseen.

   “I still have to check the
bathhouse,” he answered as he crossed the kitchen and headed
back up the steps to the north door. “That might tell me
where the freezing’s happening.”

   The north archway was cold, as usual, but
the bathhouse was tolerable, perhaps because Huldran had a fire going
in the stove. Nylan climbed up the brick steps beside the wall-
designed for just such a purpose-and checked the water warmer-which was
three-quarters full. A thin stream of water trickled into the
warmer’s reservoir, but only a thin stream, even with the
knife gate wide open.

   “How long have you had the fire
going?” he asked Huldran.

   “Not long, ser. Colder than a
winter deer’s rump in here earlier.”

   Nylan sighed. “Maybe heating
the stove will increase the flow more. If not, we can use the stove to
melt snow, and perhaps the heat from that will also keep some water
flowing.” He paused. “Once the storm lets up,
I’ll check the outfalls.”

   “Hope the stove helps,
ser,” offered Huldran.

   “So do I.”

   He shook his head as he passed through
the ice-covered cave that the archway between the tower and bathhouse
had become. Chronologically, they weren’t quite at midwinter,
from what he could figure, and everything was freezing. Maybe more heat
would help… and maybe not.

   Another blast of cold air shivered
through the archway following a long low moan from the gale outside,
and a short icicle hanging from the bricks overhead broke loose and
shattered across the stone floor, several pieces skidding against the
tower door.

   The unheated archway was better than an
open space between tower and bathhouse, but not much, reflected Nylan,
as he opened the tower door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.
He stopped shivering when he started down the steps to the almost
comfortable lower level of the tower.

   On the side of the lower level away from
the kitchen- opposite the furnace-Ayrlyn directed a half-dozen marines
in their efforts to turn rough wooden slabs and planks into furnishings
for the tower-wall partitions, stools, an occasional chair, and several
cradles.

   Nylan stepped toward the group.

   “How is the water going,
ser?” asked Siret.

   “There’s enough in
the bathhouse for some washing, a few quick showers, and maybe more as
the stove warms things up,” Nylan said, inhaling the aroma of
baking bread that never quite seemed to leave the kitchen area. Did
Kadran and Kyseen do all the baking as much to keep warm as to feed the
marines?

   “What about the
cistern?” asked Istril.

   “I can’t do much
about that now. We’ll see if Kadran can get the water level
up. That might help.” He shrugged. “If I
can’t fix the water, at least I can do something
useful.” Nylan picked up the dovetailed section of the cradle
that was beginning to resemble a headboard. Carving and fitting the
pieces was slow, even with the glue Relyn had developed from ground
deer hooves and boiled hide and who knew what else.

   After studying the design he had
scratched on the wood, he set the headboard down and took out his
knife, borrowing the common whetstone to sharpen it.

   “Can I follow the same
pattern?” asked Istril, as she stepped up beside him, no
longer nearly so slim in the midsection as she had been in the summer
and early fall. “For the cradle, not the design.”
Then she covered her mouth and smothered a cough.

   “Of course,” answered
the engineer. “Is there anything I can explain… or
help with?”

   Istril flushed.

   So did Nylan, although he
didn’t know why, and he stammered, “With the
woodworking. I’m not an expert. That’s
Ayrlyn.”

   “That cradle looks very good,
especially for the tools we have,” commented Ayrlyn.

   “I’ve had a lot of
time,” said Nylan. “And probably even more to
come.”

   “He’s safer down
here,” whispered Berlis.

   Both Siret and Istril turned toward the
mouthy guard, and Berlis stammered, “The marshal…
she is a little touchy… right now…”

   “You’d be touchy,
too,” said Saryn, looking up from where she smoothed a curved
backpiece for what looked to be a chair. “She has to think of
everything and put up with idiots like the great hunter.”
Saryn glanced toward the corner where Ellysia quietly worked over
another plain cradle. “I’m sorry, Ellysia. I
didn’t-”

   “No offense taken, ser.
He’s a lying cur. I just hope he’s got good
genes.” Ellysia showed broad, even teeth, then looked down
over her swollen midsection at the sideboards she“ was
painstakingly rounding.

   Nylan studied the design again, the sole
tree twisting out of the rocky hillside, then let his senses take in
the wood before he lifted the knife.

   “… everything he
does is beautiful…”

   The engineer tried not to flush.

   “Not quite
everything,” quipped Ayrlyn quietly. “You
haven’t seen him ski, obviously.”

   Nylan grinned in spite of himself,
thinking about the considerable additional practice he would clearly
need in that area. Then he slowly drew the knife over the line that
represented the right side of the rocky slope, deepening the groove
gently… gently.

 

 

LIII

 

AS HE WATCHED Saryn shift her weight on the ungainly skis,
Nylan wanted to shake his head, but he had little enough time for that.
Just following the former pilot’s tracks was proving hard
enough even after his determined efforts over the past eight-days. To
navigate and shoot a bow on skis remained an effort, but he
wasn’t plunging headfirst into the snow or leaning backward
until his skis slid out from under him and left his shoulders and rump
buried in the white powder.

   With a passing cloud, a shadow fell
across the trail, and Nylan’s eyes squinted to adjust to the
change in the midday light, but the relative relief of the cloud
passed, and the glare returned.

   The snow around and across the Roof of
the World was more than seven cubits deep, and twice that in drifts.
That was deep enough that Nylan could fall into one of those pits and
never make his way out, not without turning into a knot and cutting the
thongs. There was no way to untie them hanging upside down in a mass of
powdered ice or the equivalent. His fingers twitched around his poles
as he thought about the knife at his waist.

   He blinked as a clot of snow thrown up
from Saryn’s skis and carried by a gust of wind splattered
above his left eye.

   Saryn held up a hand, and Nylan coasted
to a stop right behind her, proud that he neither hit her nor fell into
the deep snow beside the semitrail that the guards had created through
the lower forest.

   As he caught his breath on the level
stretch before a steep descent through the trees, trying not to breathe
too deeply, Nylan put off thinking about the climb back up the ridge
that would follow the trip.

   “I think there are some deer,
and maybe a snow leopard, downhill and to the right. The
wind’s coming uphill here, and I might be able to get close
enough,” whispered Saryn.

   “If I’m not stamping
along?”

   She nodded.

   “Go on. We’re always
on the verge of running out of meat.”

   “Can you just wait
here?” asked Saryn, her voice still low. “With your
bow ready?”

   “I’ll wait with a bow
handy. How much good it will do I’m not sure.”
Nylan tried to keep his own voice down.

   As the wind whispered through the
evergreens, clumps of snow splattered around them, leaving pockmarks
scattered on the once-smooth white surface, depressions that the wind
seemed to begin to fill immediately with feathery white powder that
scudded along the snow.

   The engineer glanced back uphill.
Already, sections of the packed trail they had followed had begun to
disappear beneath the drifting snow. Another shadow darkened the Roof
of the World, and he looked up at the white cloud that scudded across
the sun.

   “You’ll do fine. Just
don’t let our supper get away.” Saryn raised her
left hand and then slipped down the steeper section of the partly
packed snow trail ahead. In moments, she was out of sight in the trees,
gone as silently as if she had never been there.

   Nylan shrugged and unlimbered the
composite bow, wishing that he had practiced more with the weapon. The
shadow of the cloud passed, and for a long time, nothing moved in the
expanse of white beneath the overhanging firs, nothing except snow
scudded between trunks by the light wind that rose and fell, rose and
fell.

   A gray-winged form plunged from nowhere
into a swirl of powdered snow, and a quick geyser of white erupted,
then died away as the gray-hawk flapped away, a small white-coated
rodent in its claws.

   As the hawk vanished, Nylan inched
forward on the skis, mainly to shift his weight and keep his hips and
knees from cramping in the cold. He looked back in the general
direction of the tower, but could see nothing but snow, tree trunks,
and the white-covered green of the fir branches.

   A rhythmic swishing, almost a series of
whispering thuds, rose, just barely, over the hissing of the wind.

   Nylan squinted, looking downhill, when
the snow cat bounded across the hillside toward the trail where he
stood, moving so quickly that what had seemed a small figure swelled
into a vision of knife claws and glinting teeth even as Nylan released
his first arrow and reached for the second, triggering reflex step-up.
The second arrow flew as the leopard reached the snow beside the flat
section at the crest of the trail.

   Both Nylan and the snow cat seemed to be
moving in slow motion, but the engineer forced his body to respond. The
third arrow left the bowstring as the cat stretched toward Nylan.

   Bow still in hand, he managed to dive
into the snow at the side of the trail as the snow cat lunged at him. A
line of fire slashed down his shoulder as he half twisted away from the
mass of fur and claws. His skis linked together, and he toppled like a
tree blasted by a microburst into the deep snow, a heavy weight on his
back.

   That weight did not move, and, in time,
Nylan levered it away from him and, through a combination of rolling,
twisting, and gasping, finally struggled into the light.

   His knees ached. One leg burned, and the
other threatened to cramp. Half sitting, half lying in the snow, he
managed to reach one of the poles he had abandoned to use the bow, and
with it, to retrieve the bow itself. He laid it on the edge of the
harder snowpack of the trail. Then he looked at his boots and the mass
of snow and ice around the thongs.

   With a groan and more rolling he finally
managed to totter erect.

   The claws had sliced through the heavy
leather shoulder of the hunting jacket he had borrowed from Ayrlyn, but
blunted the impact enough that the wound was little more than a thin
line skin-deep.

   He looked at the snow-covered leopard,
then downhill, but the forest was silent. After prodding the cat with
one of his poles, he took a deep breath, regretting it instantly as the
chill bit into his lungs, and then edged his skis toward the dead
leopard.

   Nylan knelt and removed the first arrow
shaft, wiping it clean on the snow, then replacing it in the quiver.
Then he searched for the second.

   The sun was well past midday when Saryn
trudged uphill, pulling the carcass of a winter deer behind her. By
then, Nylan had dragged the snow leopard out onto the trail and worked
out the three arrows.

   “I’m sorry, Nylan,
but… we do need the meat, and it took me longer-What
happened to you?” Saryn stopped and stared at the bedraggled
engineer, her eyes going from his shoulder to the body of the snow
leopard.

   “It decided I’d make
a good dinner. I tried not to oblige.”

   “You were lucky.”

   Nylan nodded. His jaw still chattered,
and his knees were wobbly, especially as he looked at the stretched -
out length of the cat.

   “But they’re all your
shafts. So you get the fur. We all share the meat. That’s a
dubious benefit.” Saryn laughed, and Nylan joined her.

   Snow-cat meat was tough, gamy, and no
pleasure for teeth or tongue, even in a well-cooked stew.

   Nylan adjusted the bow in its cover and
checked the quiver.

   “What will you do with the
fur?” Saryn asked. “That’s yours, you
know.”

   “Mine?”

   “Meat you can split, but not
the hide. We all agreed that the choice is up to the one who brings the
animal down, especially if you get wounded.”

   Nylan’s eyes flicked to the
slash in his jacket. “It’s only a cut.”

   Saryn laughed. “Your skis
didn’t move much.” Her eyes looked to the
depression beside the trail.

   “That would have been
futile,” Nylan admitted.

   “So you stood there and fired
three arrows at a charging leopard?”

   “It does sound stupid, when you
put it that way.”

   “Necessary,” Saryn
said. “What would have happened if you’d tried to
ski away?”

   “I’d be under ten
cubits of snow or a midday meal for the leopard.”

   “So the pelt is yours. You
earned it.”

   “I suppose it will make a good
coverlet for Dyliess. It’s light and warmer than anything
else.”

   “Dyliess?
Ryba’s… ?”

   Nylan nodded. “Mine,
too.”

   “That’s a beautiful
cradle you’re making.”

   “Thank you. It’s
almost done, and that’s hard to believe.” Nylan
took a deep breath. “Don’t we have to drag this
beast somewhere?”

   “You get to drag it home.
I’ve got the deer,” Saryn said. “I even
have some rope.”

   “You are so obliging.”

   “Think nothing of it.”

   How Nylan got the cat carcass back to the
tower he didn’t know, only that his legs ached even more, his
shoulder burned, as did his eyes, despite the eye black under and
around them-which he’d have to wash off sooner or later. He
felt light-headed.

   He had taken off his skis and leaned
against the causeway wall and watched as Kadran and Saryn set up the
tripod and skinned and gutted the deer and then the leopard. With the
pelt off, the cat’s carcass was thin, and Nylan felt almost
sorry for the dead animal, even though it had certainly tried to kill
him. “Thin,” he murmured. “So fearsome,
and so thin.”

   “It’s a hard life,
even for the animals who live here,” answered Saryn.

   A taller figure skied to a halt beyond
the causeway, then bent and unlaced the thongs of his skis. Gerlich
looked at Saryn and Kadran. “So you finally got something
besides a deer. A real snow leopard. Congratulations, Saryn.”

   Saryn smiled politely, pulling her scarf
away from her mouth. “Thank you, but it isn’t mine.
I got the deer. Nylan put three arrows through the cat. All of them in
the chest, not much more than a span apart.”

   “In the chest?”

   Saryn rotated the carcass on the fir-limb
tripod and pointed. “Here, here, and here.”

   Gerlich inclined his head to Nylan.
“My congratulations to you, then, Engineer. Your bows must
carry farther in the winter.”

   “I wish I’d been able
to use them at that range,” Nylan offered, pointing to the
slash in the jacket. “Then this wouldn’t have
happened. He got a little closer than I would have ideally preferred.
It’s hard to fire arrows with claws in your face.”

   After a moment, Gerlich answered,
“I can see that.” With a look back at Nylan, he
crossed the causeway and entered the tower.

   “Ser,” said Saryn,
“we really don’t need you. You might think about
cleaning and dressing that slash. Relyn and I- we’ll start
tanning the pelt… don’t you worry.”

   Nylan heaved himself erect and picked up
the skis and poles. “Thank you. You’re probably
right.”

   After carting the skis down to the lower
level and racking them and the poles, he started back up toward the
fifth level, where the medical supplies were kept. He stopped at the
main level and staggered into the great room, where he slumped at the
empty table, too tired to climb the steps.

   While he really needed to wash out the
cut on his shoulder, that meant climbing four more flights of steps,
and digging out the antiseptic, what little there was left, and then
going to the bathhouse. He took a deep breath.

   The main door opened, and Kadran
struggled inside with a deer haunch, followed by Kyseen. Neither looked
toward the dimness of the great room.

   “… should have heard
the engineer… ‘got a little closer than I would
have ideally preferred.’ I thought I’d die. Gerlich
was going to shit building stones…”

   “Engineer’s a tough
little bastard.”

   “… quiet, a lot of
the time… have to be tough to deal with the
marshal… leopard’s probably easy by
comparison…”

   Ryba, tougher than a snow leopard? Nylan
chuckled to himself. No question about that, but he’d prefer
to fight neither.

   As the two cooks vanished, he stood and
walked toward the steps, and the antiseptic, the cleaning he
wasn’t looking forward to, and soreness in muscles
he’d forgotten he had- and the headache, the headache that
seemed not quite constant.

 

 

LIV

 

OUTSIDE THE FROSTED window, the day is dull gray. Even the
snow on the fields in the distance is gray. That on the roads below
Hissl’s room has been tramped into a fro/en mixture of brown
and gray.

   The warmth from the small brazier in the
corner is more than welcome. Hissl shifts his weight on the stool to
warm his right side, without taking his eyes from the glass on the
table.

   Centered in the swirling white mists are
the images of the black mage and the woman warrior. Each drags a
carcass, but the mage drags that of a snow cat up the slope toward the
line of smoke that rises from the tower chimneys.

   Two other figures, also on the long wide
skis, sweep down the slope toward the pair.

   The mage appears awkward on the skis, but
he is the one who drags the snow cat. Their breath puffs through the
scarves that cover their faces, then falls in the bright light in
powdery crystals toward the snow through which they climb.

   Hissl’s eyes focus on the bows
both carry, then narrow. He smiles. “No thunder-throwers
now.”

   Neither of the two skiers who stop on the
white expanse above the toiling pair wear thunder-throwers, either, and
Hissl’s tight smile broadens. He tries not to think about a
mage who will stand fast before a snow leopard, and his eyes flick to
the window.

   The grasslands beyond Clynya are still
covered with white, but the days are again lengthening, and even on the
Roof of the World the snows will vanish in time.

 

 

LV

 

CARRYING A CLEAN outfit, Nylan padded down the stairs in his
boots and old trousers, trying to ignore the chill that seeped around
him. He slowed as he neared the fourth level.

   Gerlich unloaded his gear, racking the
quiver in the shelf space that was his, and hung the long bow beside
it, his fingers running over the wood, almost lovingly. Then he removed
the shoulder harness and the great blade.

   The big man slid the blade from the
scabbard, studied it, and took a small flagon from the bag that hung
from one of the pegs. After extracting a pair of rags from the leather
bag, he used one rag first to dry the blade and afterward the scabbard,
before draping the damp rag over a shoulder-high peg on the long board
fastened to the wall. Then he unstoppered the flagon and poured a small
amount of oil onto the other rag before closing the flagon. Gently, the
hunter oiled the blade from hilt to tip.

   As he watched the hunter, Nylan puzzled
over several items. Although Gerlich brought back no game, he had
brought back fewer arrows, and shafts and arrowheads were not easy to
come by. Had Gerlich lost the shafts?

   Nylan smiled. Perhaps the great hunter
was not so great after all. He shook his head as he studied Gerlich.
Why did the hunter carry the huge blade on a hunting trip? Any sort of
sword was difficult to use on skis. In fact, anything was hard to use
trying to balance on wooden slats spanning deep powder snow.

   Based on his encounter with the leopard,
Nylan could certainly testify to that. He lifted his right shoulder,
felt the soreness. Despite the antiseptic, one section of the slash had
become inflamed, enough so that Ayrlyn had been forced to use her
healing talents-a way of forcing out the disorder of infection.

   After having watched her do it, Nylan had
practiced on the shoulder wound himself, keeping it chaos-free. That
talent might come in useful at some point, especially when the few
remnants of the medical supplies were exhausted. The talent
didn’t seem to speed healing much, but it stopped infection
and would reduce scarring, Nylan suspected.

   “Any luck?” Nylan
asked from the steps.

   Boredom replaced surprise on
Gerlich’s face. “Not this time. We’ve
killed most of the dumb animals, and I’ve got to travel
farther every time.”

   “Sorry to hear that.”
Nylan nodded and continued down the steps.

   There were people near the hearth in the
great room, but the engineer continued onward toward the north door. He
shivered as he hurried through the ice-lined archway and into the
bathhouse. The stove was yet warm, and some water lay on the stone
tiles of the first shower stall, but no one remained in the building.
Huldran probably had used the shower-or Ryba-or both.

   Nylan stripped off the boots and trousers
and checked the knife valve. Then he stood under the frigid water only
long enough to get thoroughly wet, before lathering himself with the
liquid concoction that Ayrlyn had claimed was the local equivalent of
soap.

   The amber liquid looked like oil laced
with sand and flower petals. That was also what it smelled like-rancid
flower petals. It felt like liquid sandpaper as Nylan stood, damp and
freezing, on the cold stones of a shower stall without a door, trying
to scrub grease off his hands, frozen and thawed sweat out of his stiff
hair, and grime off most of his body.

   He had to wet his body twice more just to
get lathered half properly, and then it took three short rinses-just
because he couldn’t stand under the cold water that long.
Cold? The water had been warmed some by the bathhouse stove’s
water warmer.

   The only excuse for a towel was a napless
synthetic oblong that might have qualified as a hand towel on Heaven
except for the fact that it was designed to shed water-not absorb it.
So Nylan had to use it more to wipe the water off his body, letting a
combination of evaporation and what felt like sublimation do the rest.

   While he looked and smelled more human at
the end of the process, the bluish tinge to his skin spoiled the
feeling. The goose bumps and shivers remained long after he donned the
relatively clean clothes that had taken two days to dry after he had
washed them. Finally, his feet were dry enough for him to pull on the
wool-lined boots.

   The bathhouse remained empty, except for
him.

   When he had stopped shivering violently,
he marched resolutely toward the brick archway that had become a solid
arc of ice. The ends of his damp hair still froze before he got into
the tower and closed the north door behind him. After carting his old
trousers up to the top level, he returned to the great hall, and the
coals in the hearth.

   In the dimness, Relyn sat on one side,
Murkassa on the other, each one’s back to the coals. Neither
looked at the other. Both shivered.

   “A cheerful group,”
Nylan observed.

   “Feeding fowls-that is all I
can do that is useful,” snapped Relyn, raising his artificial
hand. “Or sheep. It is so cold that I can barely hold the
bag.” His eyes turned on Nylan. “Your hair is
wet.”

   “I couldn’t stand
being dirty and unshaven any longer. I took a shower.”

    “You have ice in your
veins.” Relyn shuddered. “You are more terrible
than the women. They are merely angels, trying to live as
people.”

   “That’s
nonsense,” Nylan retorted. “I’m trying
just as hard.” He stepped toward the residual warmth of the
hearth.

   “They did not think of the
tower and build it. They did not find the water that flows when all is
frozen. They did not forge the blades of black lightning. They did not
build the small bows that send arrows through plate mail.”
Relyn stood, but his eyes were on the stones of the floor.
“They only fought and grew crops and hunted. You forged
Westwind, and all that it will be. I have finally seen the truth. You
are the first true black mage.”

   Nylan snorted. “Me?
I’m the man who can barely cross the snows on skis. The one
who couldn’t get a thunder-thrower to kill
anyone…”

   Relyn laughed… gently.
“The thunder-throwers do not belong in Candar. Nor did the
magical tools you first used. Yet all the weapons you created and all
the buildings you built will remain. Everything you forged belongs here
on the Roof of the World, and everything will last for generations. If
you died today, what you have wrought would remain.”

   “That was the general idea. You
seem to be the first one to fully understand that.” Nylan
paused, and in the silence could hear the sounds of voices and tools
and cooking coming up from the lowest level of the tower.
“What’s so strange about it? I helped to build a
tower, but there are towers all over Candar. I forged some blades, but
armsmen all over Candar carry blades. I created bows, but archers have
existed for years.”

   Relyn just shook his head.

   “Murkassa?” Nylan
turned to the thin and round-faced girl.

   “Yes, Ser Mage.”
Murkassa pursed her lips and waited.

   “Tell the honorable Relyn that
he’s full of sheep manure.”

   “No, ser. You are the black
one, and the marshal is the Angel, and you have brought the Legend to
the world.” She looked sideways at Relyn. “The men
of these lands, mayhap of all lands, are like Jilkar. They respect only
the strong. You have made these women strong-”

   “They were already
strong.” Nylan laughed bitterly.

   “Then you have kept them
strong, and they will force the men of Candar to respect them-and to
respect all women.”

   “That is why Sillek will come
to attack Westwind,” said Relyn. “After him may
come Lord Karthanos of Gallos.”

   “Is that why Lornth dislikes
Jerans?” asked Nylan. “Strong women?”

   Relyn nodded.

   With the low moaning of the wind, the
engineer turned toward the windows. “Some mage I am. I
can’t even keep this place warm enough.”

   “It is warm enough for the
angels to grow and prosper. It is warm enough that all Candar will
tremble at the name of Westwind. I should think that would be warm
enough.” Relyn’s tone is ironic.

   “You give me far too much
praise, Relyn.”

   “No… ser…
you do not choose to see that you have changed the world. You have
changed me, and you will change others, and in time few indeed will
understand the world before the Legend.”

   “You are different,”
Murkassa added. “You see women as strong, and as you see
them, so are they.”

   “Women are strong. Stronger
than men in many ways,” Nylan said.

   “As you say, Mage.”

   Nylan shook his head. Why did they take
his words as a statement of faith, as if what he said became true?
Outside, the howling of the storm rose, and Nylan wondered, absently,
how the sheep, chickens, and horses were faring. The enemy was the
winter, not the preconceptions of men in Candar.

   Both Relyn and Murkassa exchanged amused
smiles, as if Nylan could not see the obvious. Maybe he
couldn’t.

   “I’m going down to
work.”

   “Yes, Mage.”

   They smiled again.

   Change the world? Nylan tried not to
frown as he left the slowly chilling great room to descend to the
woodworking area and his efforts with the cradle and the rocking chair
he was beginning. Changing the world by building a tower with
rudimentary water and sanitation? By using a dying laser to forge a
handful of blades and a few composite bows? By nearly getting killed by
a snow cat or always falling into snow over his head?

   He snorted again. He had a cradle to
finish-and a rocking chair-and he couldn’t afford to be
distracted by delusions of grandeur.

 

 

LVI

 

“… DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY Lord
Sillek is receiving this trader with such honor…”

   As she catches the murmur from halfway
down the long table on the low dais, Zeldyan smiles and, under the
table, squeezes Sillek’s hand.

   He turns and smiles at his consort.

   “The honorable Lygon of
Bleyans!” announces the young armsman - in - training at the
doorway to the dining hall, his voice on the edge of cracking.

   Retaining the smile on his face, Sillek
stands to greet Lygon. Zeldyan rises almost simultaneously. At the end
of the table to Sillek’s right, the lady Ellindyja smooths
her face into a mold of polite interest. At the end to the left, Ser
Gethen cultivates a look of indifference.

   Lygon, a round-faced man wearing a maroon
velvet tunic and a silver chain, marches up between the two rows of
tables in the dining hall as the murmurs die away and the leading
tradespeople and landowners of Lornth watch.

   A quick trumpet fanfare sounds as Lygon
steps onto the dais.

   Sillek gestures to the empty seat to his
right. “Welcome, Lygon. Welcome to Lornth, and to our
hospitality.” He steps back. “This is Zeldyan, my
lady and consort. Zeldyan, this is Lygon, the most honorable trader of
Suthya.”

   “Whenever you rulers call me
honorable, Sillek, I want to reach for my purse.” Lygon
overtops Sillek by half a head, but bows low, first to the Lord of
Lornth, and then to Zeldyan. “It is a pleasure to meet you,
lady, and to know that Lord Sillek has you to enchant him and grace his
towers.”

   “It is my pleasure to meet you,
ser,” Zeldyan responds, smiling brightly. “And I
will do my best to offer such grace, especially since you do us such
honor.” Behind her, Gethen nods minutely. “We
don’t want your purse, Lygon, just your presence.”
Sillek laughs easily and stands until the trader sits. Around the hall,
the murmurs rise again. Lygon stares frankly at Zeldyan for a moment
before his eyes return to Sillek. “Your consort, she is a
true beauty.” His eyes go back to Zeldyan. “And you
are, my lady. Few indeed have your grace and beauty.”

   “I do my poor best for my
lord,” Zeldyan answers, “for he is dear to
me.”

   Lygon nods, neither agreeing nor
disagreeing as Sillek himself pours the red wine from the pitcher
between them into two goblets almost equidistant from each man. The
trader takes the goblet fractionally closer to Sillek.

   Sillek lifts the one remaining, raises
it, and says, “To your continued health and to good
trading.”

   “To health and good
trading,” affirms Lygon. Those at the head table drink with
Sillek and Lygon, though Zeldyan’s lips barely pass the wine.

   Lygon sets his goblet before him and
studies the great hall below the dais. “Quite a
gathering.”

   “Only the due of a first trader
of Suthya.” Sillek takes another sip from his goblet.
“Even my consort’s father made a special trip from
Carpa to honor you.”

   “First trader, twentieth
trader-what difference does it make?” Lygon shakes his head.
“We’re all traders, and we try to be fair to
all.”

   Lygon’s voice carries, but his
eyes are on Sillek, and he does not see how Ser Gethen’s lips
tighten at his words.

   “Fairness-that’s
important to Lornth. It always will be,” answers Sillek.

   “I had hoped that Lornth would
continue the warm relationship enjoyed in the past with the traders of
Suthya, and I am pleased to see such hospitality again
offered.” Lygon downs the remaining wine in his goblet with a
single swallow, then slices the pearapple on his plate into slivers and
pops a pearapple section and a chunk of Rohrn cheese into his mouth.
“Always have good cheeses here.”

   “I am glad you find them so,
and trust you will always do so.” Sillek takes a swallow of
his wine, a swallow far smaller than it appears.

   “The wine’s better
than what your sire served. Where’d you find it?”

   Sillek inclines his head toward Zeldyan.
“The uplands of Zeldyan’s father’s lands
produce a good grape, and better wine.”

   “Ha! Consorted well, for beauty
and good wine. You demon, you.” Lygon laughs.

   Sillek smiles, as does Zeldyan, but, at
their respective ends of the table, neither Gethen’s nor
Ellindyja’s face mirrors such apparent pleasure.

   “Heard some rumors-you know how
things go-some rumors that a bunch of crazy women took over a
mountaintop on your eastern marches.” Lygon swallows and
chews more of the pearapples and cheese. “Some even
say,” adds the trader through a full mouth,
“they’re evil angels.”

   “That has been said,”
acknowledges Sillek, “and, if they survive the winter, I may
well be occupied. Then again,” he laughs wryly, “I
may be occupied with the Jeranyi. I’m certain
you’ve also heard that rumor. Well… it’s
true. I’ve got my chief armsman in Clynya. He’s not
exactly pleased.”

   “It has also been said that you
handed Ildyrom a stinging defeat.” Lygon chews through the
rest of the pearapple slices, barely avoiding spitting fragments across
the linens.

   At her end of the table, Lady Ellindyja
contains a wince.

   “The problem with such
victories,” Sillek responds, “is that they require
maintenance. And supplies,” he adds, looking at the trader.

   “No business tonight, Lord
Sillek,” protests Lygon. “It’s a cold
winter out there, and tonight’s the time for warmth and good
food.”

   “I stand corrected.”
Sillek raises his hands, half in laughter, half in mock defeat.

   Zeldyan smiles. So does her father.

 

 

LVII

 

A LOW FIRE, for once, burned in the hearth of the great room.

   Ryba sat in the chair at the end of the
table, with Saryn on her right and Nylan on the left. Ayrlyn sat beside
Saryn, while Fierral sat next to Nylan with Kyseen beside her. Relyn
was seated beside Ayrlyn. Gathered around the foot of the first table
on the side below Saryn were Gerlich, Narliat, and Selitra. On the side
below Nylan were Huldran, Istril, Murkassa, and Hryessa.

   “I’d guess
you’d call this a status or planning meeting.”
Ryba’s breath created a flicker in the candle at her end of
the table. “I wanted to hear from each of you about how your
efforts are going, and any suggestions you might have.” The
marshal looked at Gerlich. “Hunting?”

   “It’s getting
harder,” Gerlich said. “The deer we do get are
thinner. We haven’t seen a snow leopard since the engineer
killed his. The big cats have gone to lower grounds-or hibernated. The
same for the bears.”

   “The old ones say the leopards
talk to each other,” added Murkassa.

   Her breath nearly guttered out the other
candle, and Huldran reached out and moved it more toward the center of
the table.

   “What about smaller
animals?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “It takes a lot of effort to
catch them, and what good is a hare when we have to forage for more
than a score of people?” Gerlich shrugged, looking toward
Kyseen.

   “You get me three hares, and I
can make a meal,” affirmed the cook.

   “How are your supplies
coming?”

   “Not as well as I’d
like,” admitted Kyseen. “We’ve been
grinding and powdering some of those roots into the flour, and that
stretches it. Some of the guards say it’s bitter. What can I
do? The potatoes are good, but we’ll finish those off in
another eight-day, maybe two, if we only have them every third
day.”

   “The potatoes are all that
stick,” said Huldran. “There’s not enough
meat, and the loaves are getting smaller.”

   The low moan of the wind outside the
great room punctuated her words, and, for a moment, no one spoke.

   “Birds?” asked the
marshal.

   “We’ve got owls and
gray-hawks up here. That’s all we’ve seen,
anyway,” answered Gerlich. “Neither has much meat,
and they’re so quick I don’t see how you could
shoot them.”

   Ryba nodded and turned to Saryn.
“What about the livestock?”

   “There isn’t enough
grass and hay for the horses and the sheep,” Saryn said.
“We’ve cut back on the corn for the chickens, and
they’ve cut back on laying. There’s not enough
grain for the rest of the winter for them, either.”

   “The chickens, they lay little
in the winter,” said Hryessa. “I would start
killing the older ones and let the young ones live for the year
ahead.”

   “Can you work that
out?” asked Ryba.

   Saryn glanced at Hryessa, then at Ryba,
and nodded. “That still doesn’t solve the fodder
problem.”

   “The lander we used for storage
is more than a third full,” said Selitra.

   “I helped fill that full, I
did,” interjected Narliat.

   “We’re only about
halfway through the winter,” pointed out Saryn.
“There’s no forage out there, and there
won’t be even after the snow melts.”

   “There are the fir
branches…” suggested Murkassa. “Goats
sometimes eat them.”

   “It doesn’t do the
goats much good,” pointed out Relyn,. “and sheep
can’t eat as many things as goats.”

   “We’re getting short
of food,” Ryba pointed out, “and we don’t
have enough food for both sheep and mounts.” Her eyes
narrowed. “We can get more sheep, one way or another, if we
have to. Without mounts we’re dead.”

   “We need twenty
mounts,” said Fierral. “And they can’t be
skin and bones.”

   The marshal turned back to Saryn.
“Figure out a slaughter schedule for the sheep-and horses, if
need be-that will leave us with twenty mounts, if you can, by the time
there’s something for the sheep and horses to forage on. It
would be good to have some sheep left, but… we’ll
need the mounts more to get through the summer.”

   “That’s going to take
a day or so.”

   “A day or so won’t
make any difference. Also, work it out with Kyseen. That’s so
she can plan the food schedule to keep everyone as healthy as she. can,
given this mess.”

   Saryn nodded.

   “What about timber?
Firewood?” asked Ryba.

   “We’re almost out of
the green timber for making things,” said Saryn flatly.
“We’ve got skis for everyone, and you’ve
seen the chairs and room panels-and the cradles. That’s about
all we can do this winter. We’re running through the stove
wood and firewood. We can’t even drag enough wood up from the
forest to replace what we’re burning. If we drag up more than
we are now, the horses will need to eat more, and some will get lung
burn.”

   “Should we turn the furniture
into heat?” asked Gerlich idly.

   “No,” answered
Ayrlyn. “That wouldn’t add two days’
heat, and it would be a waste of all that effort. Besides, the impact
on people’s morale…”

   “Just asking.”

   “Try thinking,”
muttered Huldran under her breath.

   Nylan barely kept from nodding at that.

   “Anything else?” The
marshal looked around the table.

   Gerlich nudged the woman beside him.

   “The roof in the showers
leaks,” ventured Selitra.

   “We can’t do much
about that until spring,” Nylan admitted.

   “Sometimes the water freezes on
the stones. That’s dangerous,” said the lithe guard.

   “Getting up on that roof now
would be more dangerous,” pointed out Nylan. “And
it’s too cold for the mortar to set. We don’t have
roofing tar… maybe by summer.”

   “I hope no one falls.”

   “Is there anything else we can
do something about?” asked Ryba. “If not,
that’s all. Saryn… you stay. I’d like
your estimates on what livestock should be slaughtered and how that
might stretch out the feed and fodder.”

   As Nylan stood by the window while Saryn
provided rough fodder estimates to Ryba, he listened to Hryessa and
Murkassa, talking in low voices by the shelves under the stone
staircase.

   “… a third of a
place filled with hay and grass, and they would start slaughtering
now?”

   “Would you wait until there was
no food, and then kill them all, or have them starve?” asked
Murkassa. “These women, they are smart, and the Angel thinks
ahead, far ahead.”

   Perhaps too far, thought Nylan, turning
back to the pair at the table. He hadn’t liked
Gerlich’s using Selitra to bring up problems with the
bathhouse, either. The engineer forced himself to take several deep
slow breaths, then turned his thoughts back to the table, though he
remained beside the frosted and snow-covered window.

   “I’d say a sheep now,
and another one in an eight-day… two chickens…
lay in three days… that leaves eight hens and four
half-grown chicks.”

   “Mounts?” asked Ryba.

   “There’s one nag,
gelded, barely gets around.”

   “See if Kyseen can make
something there. Start with the nag, not the sheep. A sheep can give
wool and food. A male that can’t work and can’t
stand stud-that’s useless.”

   Nylan half wondered if someday
he’d be just like the poor nag. He pursed his lips and waited
until Saryn strode out. Then he stepped up as Ryba rose from the chair.
“In short,” he said, “things are bad and
getting worse, and it’s going to be a long time before the
snow melts.”

   “That’s not a
problem,” said the marshal. “It’s going
to warm up within probably three eight-days. But it’s likely
to be almost eight eight-days before there’s any spring
growth, even in the woods, that the animals can forage through, or
before Ayrlyn can get out and trade for food.”

   “Eight eight-days?
That’s going to be hard. Really hard.”

   “Harder than that. Much
harder.” Ryba walked toward the steps down to the kitchen
area.

 

 

LVIII

 

THE TALL MAN smooths his velvet tunic before stepping into the
tower room.

   “You do honor to receive me,
Lady Ellindyja,” offers the tall trader.

   Lady Ellindyja steps back from the door
and offers a slight head bow. “I do so appreciate your
kindness in coming to see one whose time is past.” She slips
toward her padded bench, leaving Lygon to follow.

   As she turns and sits, she picks up the
embroidery hoop, and smiles as she finds the needle with the bright red
thread.

   “Ah… my lady, you
did-”

   “Lygon, you are a trader, and
you have dealt fairly with Lornth for nearly a score of
years.”

   “That is true.” Lygon
runs his hand through the thinning brown hair before settling into the
chair opposite Ellindyja. “I would like to believe I have
always been fair. Firm, but fair.” He laughs. “Firm
they sometimes take for being harsh, but without a profit,
there’s no trading.”

   “Just as for lords, without
honor, there is no ruling?” asks Ellindyja, her needle still
poised above the white fabric of the hoop.

   Lygon shifts his weight on the chair.
“I would say that both lords and traders need
honor.”

   “What weight does honor add to
a trader’s purse?” asks Ellindyja, her tone almost
idle.

   “People must believe you will
deliver what you promised, that your goods are what you state they
are.”

   “Do you tell people what to
buy?”

   Lygon frowns before he answers.
“Hardly. You cannot sell what people do not want.”

   “I fear that is true in ruling,
too,” offers Ellindyja, her eyes dropping to her embroidery
as the needle completes a stitch. “The lords of a land have
expectations. Surely, you are familiar with this?”

   “I am a trader, lady, not a
lord.” Lygon shifts his weight.

   “I know, and you would like to
continue trading in Lornth, would you not?” Ellindyja smiles.

   “Lady…”
Lygon begins to stand.

   “Please be seated, trader
Lygon. I am not threatening, for I certainly have no power to threaten.
I am not plotting or scheming, for I have my son’s best
interests at heart. But, as any mother does, I have concerns, and my
concerns deal with honor.” With another bright smile,
Ellindyja fixes her eyes on Lygon. “You are an honorable man,
and you understand both trade and honor, and I hope to enlist your
assistance in allaying my concerns.” She raises the hand with
the needle slightly to halt his protestation. “What I seek
from you will neither cost you coin nor ill will. I seek your words of
wisdom with my son, at such time as may be appropriate. That is
all.”

   “I am no sage, no
magician.” Lygon rubs his forehead.

   “I have little use for
either,” answers Ellindyja dryly. “As you remarked
at the dinner the other night, my son faces a difficult situation. Lord
Ildyrom has created some difficulties to the south, while the demon
women have seized part of his patrimony in the Westhorns. These women
are said to be alluring, not just to men, but to malcontented women
here in Lornth.” She pauses. “And all across the
western lands, even in Suthya. Would you want women leaving Suthya to
create a land ruled by women? How would you trade with them? Would they
not favor traders from, say, Spidlar?”

   “I could not say. I have not
heard of such.” Lygon licks his thick lips.

   “Let us trust that such does
not come to pass, then.” The needle flickers through the
white fabric. “Yet how can Lord Sillek my son support such a
cause merely because it would benefit the traders of Suthya?”

   Lygon’s brows furrow.
“If you would go on…”

   “It is simple, honored trader.
My son is concerned that the honor of merely regaining his patrimony is
not enough to justify the deaths and the coins spent. His lords are
concerned that their daughters and the daughters on their holdings do
not find the wild women alluring, but they cannot speak this because
they would be seen as weak or unable to control their own
women.”

   Lygon shakes his head. “What
has this to do with trading?”

   Ellindyja’s lips tighten ever
so slightly before she speaks. “We have few weaponsmiths, and
armies require supplies. If the honor of upholding your-and our-way of
life is not sufficient for you to speak to my son about the need to
uphold his honor, and that of his lords, then perhaps the supplies
needed in such an effort will offer some inducement. Except you need
not speak of supplies to Lord Sillek. That would be too direct, even
for him.”

   “My lady… you amaze
me. Lord Sillek is fortunate to have a mother such as you.”

   “I seek only his best
interests, trader. Happily, they coincide with yours.”

   “Indeed.”
Lygon’s eyes wander toward the door.

   Lady Ellindyja rises. “You must
have matters to attend to more pressing than listening to an old lady.
Still, if you could see it in your heart to offer your observations
about honor and about how you see that lords would not admit their
concerns publicly… why, I would be most grateful.”

   Lygon stands and bows. “I could
scarcely do less for a mother so devoted to her son.”

   “I am deeply devoted to his
best interests,” Ellindyja reiterates as she escorts the tall
trader to the door.

   The tower door opens, and Lygon steps
into the hallway and strides toward the steps to the lower level, his
face impassive, his eyes not catching the blond woman who is descending
from the open upper parapets.

   As she follows the trader down the steps,
Zeldyan’s eyes flick to the door to Lady
Ellindyja’s room, and her mouth tightens.

 

 

LIX

 

IN THE CORNER of the woodworking area of the tower, Nylan
slowly traced the circular cuts he needed to make in the scrap of
poorly tanned leather. That way, he got longer thongs and could use the
leftover scraps. Even so, his makeshift net was turning into a
patchwork of cord, leather thongs, and synthcord.

   He glanced at the pieces of the
unfinished cradle, then at the rocking-chair sections. Both needed more
smoothing and crafting before he glued and joined them, but his hands
cramped after much time with the smoothing blade-and Siret and Ellysia
had a more urgent need to finish their cradles.

   From the other side of the tower came the
smell of meathorse meat, cooking slowly in the big oven. There was also
the smell of bread, with the hint of bitterness that Huldran and others
had noted.

   Nylan found himself licking his lips-over
horse meat?

   It had been a long winter. For a few
days, they’d eat well. And then they wouldn’t, not
for another eight-day or so. He tried not to dwell on the fate of the
poor swaybacked and tired gelding and instead looked at the
fragile-appearing net.

   “How do you catch the snow
hares?” Nylan had asked Murkassa.

   “Weaving I know, and cows, and
sheep, but not hunting. Men hunt, Ser Mage.” The round-faced
girl had shrugged, as if Nylan should have known such. Then she had
added, “It is too cold to hunt here, except for you angels,
and I must stay behind the walls.”

   Hryessa had been more helpful.
“My uncle, he once showed me his snares and his
nets…”

   After listening to descriptions of snares
and setting them, Nylan had decided nets were more practical in the
deep snow of the Roof of the World.

   Then, he hadn’t considered the
sheer tediousness of making the damned net. With a slow deep breath, he
started cutting, trying to keep his hands steady, knowing that, as in
everything, he really couldn’t afford to make any mistakes,
to waste any of the leather.

   He rubbed his nose, trying to hold back a
sneeze. With the dust left over from building and the sawdust from
woodworking and the soot from the furnace, he wondered why they
weren’t all sneezing.

   Kkhhhchew! Kkkchew! The engineer rubbed
his sore nose again.

   “It’s hard to keep
from sneezing,” said Siret from where she smoothed the
sideboards of her cradle. “I hate it when I sneeze,
especially now.”

   Behind and around Nylan, guards worked on
their own projects. Ayrlyn was attempting a crude lutar, using
fiber-cabling from one of the landers as strings. Surprisingly, Hryessa
also worked on a lutar.

   As he knelt on the slate floor, Nylan
caught a glimpse of boots nearing.

   “It’s getting
presentable in size,” said Ryba.

   Nylan stood. “The net? Yes.
Whether it will work is another question, but I thought I’d
try for another niche in the ecological framework.”

   The marshal laughed. “When you
talk about hunting, you sometimes still sound like an
engineer.”

   “I probably always
will.”

   “What else are you working
on?” Her eyes went to the wood behind Nylan.

   He gestured, glad that the
cradle’s headboard was turned so the carving was to the wall.
While he couldn’t conceal the cradle itself, he wanted some
aspect of it to be a surprise.

   “The cradle for Dyliess. A
chair.” He laughed. “Once the cradle’s
done, I’ll have to start on a bed. Children grow so fast. But
that will have to wait a bit, until the snows melt, and until
we’re in better shape.”

   “At times, I feel like life
here is always a struggle between waiting and acting, and that
I’ll choose the wrong thing to wait on because we
don’t have enough of anything.” Ryba forced a
laugh. “I suppose that’s just life
anywhere.”

   “What are you doing?”
he asked.

   “Checking on what everyone else
is doing. Then I’ll start pulling out guards for blade
practice.”

   “You’re still doing
that on the fifth level? It’s dark up there.”

   “It works fine. They really
have to concentrate. Besides, using a blade has to be as much or more
by feel as by sight.” Ryba cleared her throat.
“Nylan… you need practice with a blade. A lot more
practice.”

   “Another vision?” he
answered glumly.

   “Another vision.”
There was nothing light in her voice.

   “All right. After I get a
little more done on the net.”

   “I’ll be a while. I
need to talk to Kyseen.” Ryba’s eyes passed over
the back side of the cradle’s headboard without pausing as
she turned and crossed the space toward the kitchen.

   Nylan’s ears followed her
progress.

   “… not a warm bone
in her body…”

   “… like the queen of
the world…”

   “… even cold with
the engineer… show him some warmth…”

   “… she’s
not kept in a corner, caged up, like me,” added Murkassa.
“She can walk the snows.”

   Istril, almost like a guardian, touched
the Gallosian woman’s arm. “It is getting warmer.
It won’t be that long.”

   “… too long,
already. The stones of the walls will fall in upon
me…”

   All the guards were getting worn and
frazzled. Nylan hoped that Istril were right, that it
wouldn’t be that long, but he wasn’t counting on
it. That was why he worked on the net.

   “… never loses sight
of the weapons, does the marshal?” asked Siret, not looking
up from her continued smoothing of the sideboards of the cradle she
knelt beside.

   “No, and she’s right,
even if I dread getting bruised and banged up.”

   “You do better than most,
ser.”

   “You’re kind, Siret,
but she makes me feel like an awkward child, even when she’s
carrying extra weight and is off balance.”

   “What about me, ser?”
asked the visibly pregnant guard.

   “You’re still
sparring?”

   “She says that the men around
here could give a damn if I’m with child. Or have a babe in
arms.”

   “She’s probably right
about that, too,” Nylan answered slowly.

   “Sad, isn’t
it?”

   They both took deep breaths, almost
simultaneously. Then Siret grinned, and Nylan found himself doing the
same.

 

 

LX

 

SILLEK WALKS INTO the armory, followed by Terek. The Lord of
Lornth spots the assistant chief armsman, sharpening a blade with a
whetstone. “Rimmur?”

   The thin man looks up from the stool,
then stands quickly. “Yes, ser?”

   Behind Sillek, Terek closes the door.

   “How can I help you,
ser?”

   “Since Koric remains to hold
Clynya, I need you to make sure that our armsmen are ready to travel as
soon as the roads firm. I don’t mean an eight-day later. I
mean the day I lift my blade. Do you understand?”

   “Yes, ser. Where do we make
ready to go?”

   “I’m not telling you.
Nor will I until we start to march.” Sillek’s smile
is grim.

   “Ser…
that’ll make it hard…”
Rimmur’s words die under Sillek’s glare.
“I mean… the men…”

   “Let me explain it,”
answers Sillek. “I have Ildyrom and the Jeranyi to the west,
and these evil angels to the east. If I announce I’m going
after the angels, Ildyrom will be in and through Clynya within days
after the snows melt, or the rains -stop, and the roads firm. If I go
after Ildyrom, the traders will raise their prices and lower what they
pay, and the angels will be free to take over more of the Westhorns,
including the trade routes and the lower pastures. If I do nothing,
everyone will think they can make trouble.”

   “Yes, ser,” answered
Rimmur. “Which are you going to do?”

   Sillek slaps his forehead theatrically
and glares at the assistant armsman. “If I tell you and the
armsmen of Lornth that I’m going after Ildyrom, then everyone
will tell everyone else, and in three days all of Candar will know, and
the traders and the angels will make trouble. If I say I’m
going after the angels, then Ildyrom and his war-women will make
trouble. So I can’t say. You just have to get them ready.
I’ll announce where later.”

   “Yes, ser. They won’t
like it, ser.”

   “Rimmur… do they
want to know and be dead, or not know and be alive?”

   “Ser?”

   “If no one knows where
we’re going, whether it’s after Ildyrom or the
black angels, then our enemies can’t plan. If they
can’t plan, then fewer of our men get killed. So just get
them ready. Tell them what I told you.”

   “Yes, ser.” Rimmur
stands and waits.

   As Terek and Sillek head up the narrow
steps to the upper levels of the tower, the white wizard clears his
throat, finally saying, “You never did indicate…
ser…”

   “That’s right, Terek.
I did not. I do not know what sort of screeing or magic the angels
have. So my decision remains unspoken until we leave. That way, Ildyrom
and the angels have to guess not only which one I intend to attack, but
also when.”

   “As Rimmur said, ser, that
makes preparation uncertain.”

   “Terek… before this
is all over, we’ll end up fighting them both. So prepare for
both eventualities.” Sillek steps out onto the upper landing
and turns. “Your preparations won’t be
wasted.”

   “Yes, ser.” Terek
inclines his head.

   “Good.” Sillek turns
and walks down the corridor to the quarters where Zeldyan waits.

 

 

LXI

 

THE NIGHT WIND whistled outside the tower windows, rattling
the shutters on the partitioned - off side so much that small fragments
of ice broke off and dropped to the floor inside the sixth level. From
the third level below came the faint crying of an infant, Dephnay, but
the crying died away, replaced by the faintest of nursing sounds, and
gentle words.

   On the slightly warmer side of the top
level of the tower, protected by the thin door, the recently completed
partitions and hangings, Ryba and Nylan lay in the darkness.

   Nylan’s legs ached from the
skiing, the endless attempts to find and track the smaller rodents he
knew were in the forests. His arms and shoulders ached from the
drubbings he had taken in his last blade-sparring sessions with Saryn
and Ryba in the half darkness of the fifth level of the tower. His
lungs were heavy from the cold. His guts grumbled from the continual
alternation of too much meat and too few carbohydrates with the periods
of too little food at all. His upper cheeks burned from near-continual
frostbite, and his fingers ached from holding a smoothing blade or a
knife too long.

   For all his exhaustion, he could not
sleep, and his eyes fixed on the patchwork hangings that moved, ever so
slightly, to the convection currents between the cold stone walls and
the residual warmth of the chimney masonry that ran up the center of
the tower.

   Ryba lay on her back, nearly motionless,
eyes closed, the woolen blanket concealing her swelling abdomen.

   In the darkness through which he could
see, Nylan studied her profile, chiseled against the darkness like that
of a silver coin against black velvet, a profile almost of the Sybran
girl-next-door, lacking the regalness that appeared whenever she was
awake.

   What had made her able to struggle
against such odds, going from a steppe nomad child to being one of
UFA’s top combat commanders and to founding a nation or
tradition that seemed almost fated to endure?

   Would it endure? How long?

   He stifled a sigh. Did it matter? Ryba
was going to do what Ryba was going to do, or what her visions told her
to do, and for the moment he had no real choices. Nor did any of them,
he supposed, not if they wanted to survive. He tried to close his eyes,
but they hurt more closed than open, with a gritty burning.

   The shutter on the far side of the tower
rattled again as the wind forced its way against the tower, and more
icicles broke off and shattered across the plank floor. Even the
armaglass window creaked and flexed against the storm, although Ayrlyn
insisted that, while the storms would be more violent in the eight-days
ahead, they represented the warming that was already under way.

   Nylan hadn’t seen any real
warming outside, and the snow was still getting deeper, and the game
scarcer, and the livestock thinner, and tempers more frayed.

   He tried to close his eyes again, and
this time, this time they stayed closed.

 

 

LXII

 

NYLAN LAY IN his snow-covered burrow, the long thong attached
to the weighted net suspended over the concealed rabbit run.

   Catching even rodents was a pain. First
he’d had to put out the nets almost an eight-day before so
that the damned frost rabbits would get used to the scent-or that the
cold and wind would carry it away. But even when they triggered the
net, somehow they never had stayed caught long enough for Nylan to get
there.

   So he’d been reduced to tending
his net traps in person.

   It had taken him all morning to get the
one dead hare strapped to his pack, and it was well past mid-afternoon.
Now, lying covered in the snow, watching the second rabbit run he had
discovered, Nylan could sense the snow hare just below the entrance to
the burrow. It had poked its head out several times, but not far enough
or long enough for Nylan to drop the net.

   So the engineer shivered and
waited… and shivered and waited.

   The sun had almost touched the western
peaks before the hare finally hopped clear of the burrow.

   Nylan jerked the thong and the weighted
net fell.

   The rabbit twisted, but the crude net
held, and in the end, Nylan carried a small heap of thin flesh and
matted fur up through the snow. Now he had two thin, dead snow hares-
that was all.

   He was cold, his trousers half-soaked.
The sun was setting, and he had a climb just to get out of the forest,
even before the ridge up to Westwind.

   All that effort, for two small hares. In
the future, could they breed them? Except that meant more forage and
grain stored, and there was a limit to what they could buy or grow.

   He waded through the snow that was
chest-deep downwind to where his skis were. Once he went into a
pothole, with the snow sifting around his neck and face. He slowly dug
himself out.

   His fingers fumbled as he strapped his
boots to the skis in the growing purple deeps of twilight. Then he
pushed one heavy ski after the other along the slope. When he reached
the packed trail the horses used to drag the trees up the ridge, he
unfastened the thongs and carried poles and skis up the ridge. By the
time he reached the causeway, all the stars were out, and the night air
cut at his lungs.

   From the darkness outside the tower, he
stumbled inside into the gloom of the front entry area inside the south
door, carrying skis, poles, and hares.

   The warmth of the great room welled out
and surrounded him, and the twin candles on the tables seemed like
beacons.

   Ayrlyn reached him first as he leaned
against the steps. “Ryba was worried. It gets cold out there
when the sun goes down.”

   “I know. It took a little
longer than I thought.” He looked toward the guards at the
table, his eyes focusing on the cook near the end of the second table.
“Kyseen. My humble offerings.” Nylan raised the
pair of dead hares.

   The dark-haired cook slipped from the
table and hurried across the cold slate floor. “All offerings
are welcome these days, ser.”

   Kadran followed her. “If you
can bring in a couple more, we can tan the pelts and stitch them
together as a coverlet for Ellysia’s Dephnay,”
added the second cook. “This tower’s not so warm as
it could be for a child… begging your pardon, ser, knowing
you did the best you could, but it’s not.”

   “By next winter, it will be
warmer.” Nylan hoped they would be around for next winter.

   “You go eat, ser,”
insisted Kyseen. “I’ll dress these quick so they
don’t spoil, and I’ll be back up in an
instant.”

   “Have you eaten?” he
asked. “I wouldn’t want to spoil your
meal…”

   “I’ve eaten, and you
haven’t.” Kyseen took the two hares and started
down the steps.

   Nylan left the skis and poles by the
stairs. He’d put them away after he ate.

   “Two rabbits? That’s
all?” asked Gerlich as Nylan walked slowly toward his place
at the table.

   “I’m still
learning.” As Nylan sat, heavily, ignoring the cold and
dampness in his trousers, he asked, “By the way, when did you
last bring in any game?”

   Gerlich flushed. “I brought in
a winter deer, not a rabbit.”

   “That was more than two
eight-days ago,” Ayrlyn said as she reseated herself across
from the engineer.

   “So?” retorted
Gerlich. “Everything’s scarce these days, and
we’ve probably already killed the stupid ones.”

   “We can’t live on
stupid game,” pointed out the singer.

   “The hares are another
meal.” Ryba’s voice cut through the argument.
“And each meal helps.” She smiled for a moment at
Nylan, though there was sadness in the expression as well as pleasure
and relief.

   “It’s always cold and
dark! Always!”

   Nylan turned his head at the loud words
from the lower table, where Istril had laid her hand on
Murkassa’s shoulder.

   “The days are getting longer
now,” pointed out the silver-haired guard. “Before
long, it will be getting warmer as well.”

   “It’s still too cold
and dark.” Murkassa’s words seemed lower, though
Istril patted her shoulder again. “Even the wall stones are
cold and dark.”

   Turning back to the trencher before him,
Nylan took a slow swallow of the warm tea, not even minding the
bitterness. He reached for the chunk of bread left for him.

   A portion of a mutton stew or soup also
remained, only half-warm, but Nylan began to eat, hardly conscious of
the coolness of the meat and gravy, or the lumpiness that marked the
last of the blue potatoes… or of the continuing conversation
between Istril and Murkassa.

 

 

LXIII

 

“I CAN’T! I can’t!”

   From the corner of the furnace and
woodworking room where he smoothed the sideboards of the cradle, Nylan
looked toward the stone steps.

   “NO! I won’t. I
can’t.”

    Beside him, Siret dropped the polishing
cloth, then awkwardly bent over, trying to reach the scrap of fabric.
Nylan retrieved it and handed the cloth back to her.
“Here.”

   “Thank you, ser. I feel like I
can’t do much of anything easily-”

   “No! It’s too white!
It’s…
AEEEüüi…”

   Across the room, Ayrlyn set down the
lutar bridge she had been working on, nodded to Hryessa, and hurried up
the stairs. After a momentary hesitation, Nylan lurched to his feet and
followed Ayrlyn, not knowing quite why he did, but feeling that he
should.

   By the south door to the tower, Jaseen
and Istril held a struggling brown-haired figure-Murkassa-dressed in a
heavy jacket.

   “Too white! It’s too
white!” Murkassa’s flailing arm caught Istril
across the cheek, but the silver-haired guard pinned the arm to her
anyway, ignoring the red blotch that would be a bruise.

   Ayrlyn stepped up to Murkassa, whose body
was stiff, and whose screams had become incoherent, and touched her
forehead. Murkassa jerked away, but Ayrlyn followed the movements,
again touching her forehead.

   After a moment, the dark-haired woman
slumped, and the two holding her lowered her to the floor.

   “Whew!” muttered
Jaseen.

   Istril put a hand to her cheek.

   Ayrlyn bent down and stroked the
woman’s forehead. “You’ll be all
right…”

   Nylan swallowed. Had he felt that
unreasoning fear and rage? He studied the figure on the stones.
Murkassa’s face, though relaxing under the healer’s
touch, remained drawn. Or was it just thin?

   Nylan thought for a moment.
Wasn’t everyone’s face thinner? His trousers were
looser.

   “Hut fever,” Ayrlyn
said wryly, straightening up.

   “Hut fever?” asked
Istril.

   “She’s not built for
the cold-not enough body fat when she came here,” explained
Ayrlyn. “We really don’t have warm enough
garments-or sufficient food for a good cold-weather diet. She
can’t stand the cold. She’s afraid of it-with
reason-but she can’t stand being kept confined.”
Ayrlyn shrugged. “The conflict just got to her.”

   “What do we do?”
asked the medtech. “There’s nothing in the kits,
little enough left anyway, and we’re saving that for
childbirths.”

   “She’ll be all
right.” Ayrlyn sighed, then sank onto the stairs.

   Nylan could feel her exhaustion, almost
the way he had felt when he had worked hard manipulating the fields for
the laser-or the powernet on the Winterlance. The Winterlance seemed a
lifetime ago, and, in a way, it was.

   “Just take her up to her bunk.
She’ll be all right when she wakes.”
Ayrlyn’s voice was low and hoarse.

   “You sure?” asked
Jaseen.

   The singer and healer nodded.

   Jaseen turned and called to Weindre, who
stood gaping by the stairs from the lower level. “Give me a
hand.”

   “Istril’s
there.”

   “Get your rump over here. Last
thing we need is Istril lugging weights up.stairs. Then we’ll
have someone else needing medical care we haven’t got the
supplies for.”

   As Weindre neared, Istril said quietly,
“I’m sorry.”

   “You’ve got nothing
to be sorry for,” said Jaseen. “Someday
it’ll be her turn, and she’ll need help.”

   As the two guards carried Murkassa up to
the next level, followed by Istril, Nylan said to Ayrlyn,
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

   He hurried down to the kitchen and
cornered Kadran. “I need some bread, something for the
healer.”

   “Healer?”

   “Ayrlyn used that healing touch
on Murkassa-she went crazy, Murkassa, I mean-and Ayrlyn looks like
she’s been run over by a couple of horses.”

   Kadran frowned. “Just a little.
You never lie anyway, ser, but some, they’d tell me anything
to get more to eat, and we got to keep it fair.”

   “I know. I appreciate
it.”

   “Here you go, ser.”
Kadran cut a thin slice from the end of a loaf cooling on the table.
“Just try not to talk about it, or everyone will have a tale
of some sort.”

   Nylan nodded wryly.
“I’d gathered as much. Thank you.”

   Nylan carried the thin slice of the
bitter and dark bread up the stairs, where he handed it to Ayrlyn.

   The healer took it without speaking and
began to eat, slowly. More slowly, the color returned to her face.
“How did you know?” she asked after she licked the
few crumbs from around her lips.

   “I could… sense it.
You sort of manipulated the whiteness away from her, but that takes
energy.”

   For a moment, neither spoke as Jaseen and
Weindre trudged back down the steps. Nylan moved to let them pass.

   “We got her in her bunk.
Istril’s staying with her,” Jaseen announced.

   “Thank you, Jaseen,
Weindre,” said Ayrlyn.

   “No problem. Want you around to
do that healing if I need it.” Jaseen offered a smile and a
half salute. “We’re going down where it’s
warm.” After the guards had disappeared into the lower level,
Nylan sank back onto the stone step.

   “Thank you,” Ayrlyn
said.

   “You’re
welcome.” He added, “I saw Murkassa after you put
her to sleep, and I was thinking how thin she was.” He
shifted his weight on the stone.

   “Everyone’s thin.
Haven’t you noticed that?” Ayrlyn glanced down at
the entry space by the closed south door, then back at Nylan.
“The fact that Istril, Siret, Ryba, and Ellysia are pregnant
takes our minds away from it-that and the bulky clothes.
We’re not on what seems to be a starvation diet, but you need
three to four times the food intake if you’re active in cold
weather, and we have to be active-for a number of reasons-like getting
enough wood to keep from freezing. So we really don’t have
enough food.”

   “Is it ever going to get
warmer?”

   “It already is. The ice is
thinner on the windows, and before long they’ll stay clear
all the time.” Ayrlyn paused. “I worry about the
food, though. Darkness knows what it will be like by early
summer.”

   Nylan nodded. They needed more hares,
more game… more everything. He knew what he was doing from
now on.

   “You can’t do it all,
Nylan,” Ayrlyn said softly.“

   “You can’t solve
every problem.”

   “But I have to do what I
can.” His eyes met hers. “How could I live with
myself if I didn’t?”

   After a moment, she looked down at the
stones. Then she raised her brown eyes to his. “I appreciate
that, but it will always bring you sadness, because people take
advantage of it, just like they only respond to force.” Her
fingers touched his hand for an instant, and he could feel the warmth
that was more than physical-and the sweet sadness-before she dropped
them.

   He nodded. “I know. So do
you.”

   Their eyes met for a moment before he
looked away. Why was she the only one who really understood? Or was she?

   After another long moment, he asked,
“Do you need anything else?”

   “No,” Ayrlyn answered
with a faint and enigmatic smile. “The bread was fine. I
don’t need anything else to eat.”

   Nylan nodded again, and helped Ayrlyn to
her feet. “I have to get back to woodworking.”

   “I know.”

   Again, he could feel her eyes on his back
as he went down the stone steps to the lower level.

 

 

LXIV

 

ZELDYAN RESETTLES HERSELF in the large padded chair beside the
bed, wearing a green silksheen dressing gown that, while it sets off
her golden hair, barely covers her midsection.
“He’s active,” she says, looking down and
smiling. “I wish he weren’t quite so…
strong.”

   “You always say
‘he.’ ” Sillek stands up from the chair
that matches the one where Zeldyan sits.

   “You always question that. The
child is a boy. Even if he were a girl, would it matter?
We’re young.”

   “It matters not to
me.” Sillek steps up beside her chair, bends, and kisses her
cheek.

   “But it matters to all the
holders, and to your enemies.” A touch of bitterness creeps
into Zeldyan’s voice. She shifts her weight in the chair.
“I can’t ever get comfortable these days.”

   “A lord is always captive to
his people’s perceptions.” Sillek glances toward
the window, beyond which he can glimpse the distant fields, half white,
half brown.

   “You mean the perceptions of
the holders and those with wealth?” Zeldyan again shifts her
weight in the chair and glances toward the corner that holds the
chamber pot.

   “I cannot support a large
standing army. So I must have the support of the large holders. They
want the succession of Lornth to be ensured.”

   “If either a son or a daughter
could hold Lornth, there would be more stability.”

   “Not as they see it.”
Sillek reaches down and squeezes Zeldyan’s shoulder.
“Only men can be holders.”

   “Or warriors. Or
lords.” Zeldyan glances up. “Even your mother feels
that way, and she understands more than most men. Yet she pushes and
pushes for you to attack those women on the Roof of the World. Even
enlisting foreign traders.”

   “Lygon… he
can’t do that much, and we can make that work to our
advantage.”

   “For now,” she
agrees. “But how can you put off .all these questions of
honor that your mother raises or the idea that you are weak if you do
not attack the Roof of the World?” Her lips tighten, and she
forces them to relax.

   “I can put that off for a
time,” he muses. “But not forever.”

   “I know. If you fail to
strengthen Lornth”-she looks to the closed
door-“Ildyrom will likely succeed in taking it. If you are
successful, then all the holders will demand you reclaim the Roof of
the World.”

   Sillek nods slowly.

   “What real good is that land?
Only angels or demons could live there. Was it worth your
father’s death? If a few damned women want to live
there…” Zeldyan shakes her head.

   “Some women have already
deserted their households. One was caught; the others were
not.”

   “Oh… so the idea of
a refuge where women are not beaten, where they can bear arms-that
frightens the strong men of Lornth?” Zeldyan shifts her
weight in the chair again. “I’m sorry, Sillek.
It’s not you. You’ve been fair and open. And, in
his own way, so is my sire.”

   “I’m still Lord of
Lornth, and the men have the power, and they look to me to put things
right-as they see it.”

   “As they see it…
what they see will be the death of us all.”

   “I am trying to work around
that.”

   “I know. I know.”

   “I’ll be
back.” Sillek bends and kisses her cheek again. “At
midday?”

   “At midday.” Her eyes
drift toward the chamber pot.

 

 

LXV

 

“IT HURTS… NO one said it would hurt like
this… damn you, Ryba! Damn you!”

   Siret’s words, muffled by the
steps and the ceiling and floor separating the great room from the
marine quarters above, were still clear.

   Nylan looked at Ryba.

   “Childbirth hurts,”
the marshal said, “as I’m going to find out
firsthand before too long.” She winced slightly as Siret
yelled again.

   The space across from Nylan was vacant.
Both Ayrlyn and Jaseen were up with Siret. At the base of the table,
Gerlich glanced quizzically at Nylan, then whispered something to
Narliat. The former armsman raised his eyebrows and looked at Nylan.

   Nylan could almost sense the pain rolling
down from the upper level. Finally, he stood. “Maybe I can
help Ayrlyn.”

   “You’re not a healer
or a medtech,” pointed out Ryba.

    “No… but healing
takes a sort of… field strength… and I can help
there. Besides,” he pointed out, tossing the words back over
his shoulder, “I’m not good at standing around and
doing nothing.”

   The silence behind him lasted but a
moment, and the buzzing of conversations rose, louder than before, even
before he started up the stairs.

   Siret’s face was red as Nylan
approached the couch in the dimness of the candlelit third level.
Ayrlyn was pale, and Jaseen glanced at the engineer as if to ask what
he was doing there.

   “Good,” murmured
Ayrlyn.

   Without asking, Nylan touched the back of
Ayrlyn’s neck, trying to extend that sense of ordered power.
Through Ayrlyn he could sense the wrongness.

   “Need to move her,”
he said quietly, “the child.”

   “How?” murmured
Ayrlyn.

   Nylan didn’t know. He knew only
that it felt wrong. He let go of Ayrlyn and touched Siret’s
left arm.

   For the first time, she saw him.
“You came. You came.”

   “Hush,” he said,
embarrassed. “We’ll see what we can do.”

   Jaseen frowned and mouthed behind
Ayrlyn’s back, “The baby’s
stuck.”

   Nylan nodded, but his perceptions reached
out again, almost, it seemed, independently, trying to catalogue the
problems, from the cord that was around the child’s neck to
the tightness of the birth canal to…

   First… as though he were
guiding a laser, he strengthened the flow of blood, oxygen, life
force-in the confusion of mixing systems, he did what felt right,
hoping that his feelings were correct, since he was no doctor, only an
engineer. But there were no doctors.

   “She’s breathing
easier…” murmured Jaseen.

   Ayrlyn nodded.

   “… hurts, hurts so
much,” whimpered Siret.

   Nylan’s legs were shaking, and
he went down on his knees beside the former lander couch, his fingers
brushing the silver-haired guard’s forehead, then her abdomen
as he tried to loosen what needed to be loosened, ever so gently, half
wondering if he were dreaming or dead, as the room took on an aJmost
surreal air, as he kept shifting the strange black-tinged forces in a
pattern he did not quite understand, but could only feel.

   Beside him, he could feel another
black-tinged presence, sometimes helping, sometimes leading.

   “There!” exclaimed
Ayrlyn. “There! Push again!”

   “I’m
pushing,” groaned Siret.

   Nylan closed his eyes for a moment,
trying to get the room to stop swirling around him.

   “You have to push
again,” announced Jaseen. “You’ve still
got the afterbirth.”

   “Hurts…”
Siret’s voice was low, but stronger.

    “You can do it.”

   “Good.”

   After a time, the engineer stood and
looked at Ayrlyn. “You did it.”

   “No, you did it. I
didn’t have the nerve to try until you started.”

   “We did it, then.”

   They looked at Siret, and at the girl she
held to her breast, the infant with the silver fuzz on her scalp that
would be silver hair like her mother’s.

   Siret smiled, finally, wanly, and then
said, “Thank you. I could feel you changing
things… somehow. She wouldn’t have lived, would
she?”

   “No,” said Jaseen.
“But she’s a strong little girl. So don’t
you worry. Now, we’ve got to get you two cleaned up, and I
can do that. Those two”-and she jerked her head toward Nylan
and Ayrlyn-“they spent every bit of that magic they had on
you. You’re a lucky woman.”

   Siret’s green eyes closed for a
moment, then opened. “I’m so tired.”

   Nylan extended his perceptions, afraid
she might be hemorrhaging or something worse, but, beyond the damages
his mind and senses insisted were normal-he could only find exhaustion.

   He shook his head.

   “Anything wrong?”
asked Jaseen.

   “No. Except that everyone
insists this is normal.”

   Ayrlyn and Jaseen laughed.

   “I need some tea,”
Nylan said, “and I can’t do anything more
here.” He felt guilty as he stepped away, but Siret and her
baby daughter seemed all right. He tried to ignore the blood that
seemed to be everywhere as Jaseen started with the antiseptic.

   Slowly, he made his way down the stairs,
but a faint smile came to his face as he realized that, strange as it
had been, everything had turned out the way it should. He crossed the
great room, half aware that the tables were mostly empty and that Ryba
had left.

   “You look like a proud
father,” said Gerlich cheerfully.

   Narliat smiled nervously.

   “You know, Gerlich,”
Nylan said coldly. “The woman was in pain. For the record,
not that it should matter, I never slept with her. And you should know
that. So shut up before I stuff you into a piece of stone.”
He turned and sat down at the end of the table.

   Gerlich sat silently, as if stunned, but
Nylan didn’t care. He was tired of Gerlich’s games
and insinuations.

   Ryba had already left, but Kyseen or
Kadran, or someone, had left the bread and some tea. The tea was
lukewarm, but tasted good. Nylan ate the bread slowly, sipping the tea.

   After a time, Ayrlyn sat down across from
him. “Thank you. We might have lost them both.”

   “You were doing fine. I just
made it easier.” He cupped his hands around the mug, glancing
at the window behind her, aware that the snow had melted and/or
sublimated off the armaglass.

   “Siret was glad you were
there.”

   “I’m just an
engineer, stumbling along and doing what I can.” He refilled
his mug, then hers. “I make a lot of mistakes.”

   Her hand touched his wrist, just for a
moment, and he felt a sense of warmth. “You’re a
good man, Nylan. It’s…” She broke off
the words, and repeated, “You’re a good man.
Don’t forget it.”

   Nylan looked toward the window, hoping
spring was coming, and dreading it at the same time. He took another
sip of tea, vaguely aware that Ayrlyn had slipped away, as his thoughts
skittered across Siret and a silver-haired child, across a tower
without enough food, across Gerlich’s uncharacteristic
silence, across Ayrlyn’s warmth.

   He sipped more tea, tea that had become
cold without his noticing it.

 

 

LXVI

 

AS HE HEADED back up to the tower’s top level, Nylan
paused on the steps, looking into the tower’s third level
with eyes and senses. There, in the darkness, a silver-haired guard
held a silver-haired infant daughter to her breast and gently rocked
back and forth on the rocking chair that all the guards, and even
Nylan, had helped to make.

   “Hush, little Kyalynn, hush
little angel…” Siret’s voice was low,
but sweet, and apparently disturbed none of the guards sleeping on the
couches in the alcoves spaced along the tower walls and separated by
the dividers many had not only crafted, but personally decorated and
carved.

   Some remained awake.

   Nylan could see where one of the other
silver-haired marines-Istril-now heavy in her midsection-stared through
the darkness in his direction.

   Did she have the night vision? Had it
been conferred by that underjump on all who had gotten the silver hair?
How many of the former marines had strange talents, like his or
Ryba’s, talents they had never mentioned?

   That Nylan did not know, for he had never
mentioned that ability, though Ryba had guessed-or learned through her
strange fragmentary visions. His eyes slipped back to Siret, his ears
picking up the gentle words.

   “Hush, little angel and
don’t you sigh / Mother’s going to stay here by and
by…”

   Nylan swallowed. He’d always
heard the lullaby with “father” in the words, but
he had the feeling that fathers weren’t playing that big a
part in Ryba’s concept of what Westwind should be.

   How long he listened he wasn’t
certain, only that little Kyalynn was asleep, as was Dephnay, and so
were their mothers. His feet were cold by the time he slipped into the
joined couches up on the sixth level.

   “Where were you?”
whispered Ryba.

   “I went down to the
jakes.”

   “That long?”

   “I… went…
to the bathhouse… it’s more…
private.” He felt embarrassed, but the heavy mutton of the
night before clearly hadn’t agreed with his system.
“The mutton…”

   “I see… I
think.”

   “Then I stopped to listen to
Siret singing to her daughter for a moment. You don’t - I
didn’t - really think of her as a mother. You see them with
those blades, so effective, so…” Nylan paused,
searching for the words.

   “So good at killing?”

   “No. I don’t know. It
just touched me, that’s all. I don’t even know why.
It’s not as though I really even know her. I just helped a
little.”

   A shudder passed through Ryba.

   “Are you cold?” He
reached out to hold her, but found her shoulders, her body warm,
despite the chill in the tower. The rounding that was Dyliess made it
difficult for him to comfort her, or to stop her silent shaking.

   In the end she turned away, without
speaking. Even later, after they had fallen asleep, his arm upon her
shoulder, Ryba had said nothing, though her silent shakes - had they
been silent sobs? - had subsided.

 

 

LXVII

 

SUNLIGHT POURED THROUGH the narrow open window of the tower.
So did a flow of cold air, ruffling the hangings and rattling the thin
door that closed off the marshal’s quarters.

   “We’re doing all
right with the food,” Ryba said. “The
snow’s beginning to melt off the rocks, and it
won’t be all that long before we can send out Ayrlyn to trade
for some things.”

   “It is warming up,”
admitted Nylan. “I hope we can count on it
continuing.” He peered out the narrow opening, squinting
against the bright light, and studying the blanket of white-and the few
dark rocks on the heights to the west of the tower.

   “A storm or two won’t
make that much difference,” pointed out the marshal of
Westwind. “We’ve still got more than anyone
expected.”

   “You managed it very
well,” Nylan agreed, looking out the open window-the fresh
air, cold as it was, was welcome. “Very
realistically.”

   “
‘Realistic,’ that’s a good
term.” Ryba shifted her bulk on the lander couch.
“Most people aren’t realistic. Especially
men.”

   Rather than debate that, Nylan asked,
“What do you mean by
‘realistic’?”

   Ryba gestured toward the window.
“The locals can’t really live up here.
It’s hard enough for us. Realistically, they should just
leave us alone. Over time, we’ll be able to make the roads
free of bandits, facilitate trade, and stabilize things. Not to mention
providing an outlet for abused women, some of them, anyway, which will
make men-some of them- less abusive. If they attack us, a lot of people
get killed, more of them than of us.” She sighed.
“That’s a realistic, or rational, assessment. But
what will happen is different. The local powers-all men-will decide
that a bunch of women represent a threat to their way of life, which
isn’t that great a life anyway, except for a handful of the
well-off, and they’ll force attacks on us. If they win, they
wouldn’t have any more than if they hadn’t
attacked, not really, and when they lose, and they will,
they’re going to lose a whole lot more over time.”

   “How would women handle
it?” Nylan asked almost idly. “Do you want me to
close the window? It’s getting colder in here.”

   “You probably should. A lot of
the cold air drops onto the lower floors, even with the door
closed.” Ryba shifted her weight again. “They say
you can never get comfortable in the last part of pregnancy. I believe
it. Now… how would women handle it? I can’t speak
for all women, but the smart ones would ask what the cost of an action
would be and what they’d get. Why fight if you
don’t have to?”

   “Maybe the smart men do, too,
but they don’t have any choice,” suggested Nylan,
stepping over to the window and closing it.

   “That could be,”
admitted Ryba. “But you’re conceding that the smart
men are surrounded by other men with power and no brains.”

   Nylan shrugged.

   “Too many men want to dominate
other people, no matter what the cost. Women, I think, look at the
cost.”

   “Women also manipulate more, I
suspect,” Nylan answered. “Men-most of
them-aren’t so good with subtleties. So they dislike the
manipulative side of women.”

   “When it suits them.
Manipulation isn’t all bad. If you can get something done
quietly and without violence, why not?”

   “Because men have this thing
about being deceived and being out of control.” Nylan laughed
wryly. “They can go out of control when they find out
they’ve been tricked or manipulated,” .

   “Let me get this straight. Men
fight and have wars because they can’t manipulate, and then
they fight and have wars whenever they feel they are
manipulated?”

   Nylan frowned. “I
don’t like the way you put that.”

   “If you have a better way of
putting it, go ahead. Personally, I believe women, given the chance,
can do a better job, and, here, I’m going to make sure they
get a better chance.” Ryba eased herself onto the floor.
“I’ll be glad when I can get back to serious arms
practice. For now, it’s just exercise.”

   “I doubt it’s ever
just exercise,” quipped Nylan, following her down to the
dimness of the next level and the practice area.

   He paused on the steps, noting that among
those already practicing with Saryn and a heavy-bellied Istril were
Relyn and Fierral. The one-handed man gripped the fir wand in his left
hand with enough confidence that Nylan could see he had been practicing
for some time.

   Ryba picked up a wand. “Istril?
Shall we?”

   Istril bowed.

   Nylan took a deep breath and headed down
to the woodworking area and the unfinished cradle. What Ryba had said
about men seemed true enough, but that apparent truth bothered him. It
bothered him a lot. Were most men really that irrational? Or that blind?

 

 

LXVIII

 

HALFWAY UP TO the top of the ridge, Nylan looked back,
adjusting his snow goggles. Gerlich and Narliat remained out on the
sunlit flats, Gerlich shouting instructions as Narliat struggled with a
shorter pair of skis. The shorter skis would probably work, Nylan
reflected, now that the midday warmth had partly melted the snow and
left it heavier and crustier. As he continued up the ridge, leaving
Gerlich and his hapless pupil on the flats before the tower, Nylan
wondered why Gerlich had suddenly taken an interest in instructing
Narliat on skis.

   Was he becoming a counterfeit Ryba,
trusting no men? He didn’t distrust Relyn, although he
didn’t understand the man. Relyn seemed different, as though
he had changed and were not sure of himself. Gerlich, on the other
hand, seemed ever more foreign, contemptuous, stopping just short of
provoking Ryba.

   As Nylan reached the top of the ridge, he
looked back. Narliat was skiing slowly, following a track already set
in the snow, and Gerlich continued to encourage the local.

   Nylan used the thongs to fasten his boots
in place, then skied down the ridge in the gentle sweeping turns he had
never thought he could do. He still lurched and flailed, but did not
fall.

   He stopped at the bottom of the ridge,
searching the trees, then finally pushed his skis west, toward the
narrower strip of forest, following his senses. Were the gray leaves on
the handful of deciduous trees beginning to unshrivel? They’d
have to sooner or later, but Nylan hoped it would be sooner.

   As he entered the trees, now bare of
snow, the engineer swept the scarf away from his mouth. The wool was
too warm, and he couldn’t breathe as he slid the heavy skis
through the space between the trunks, his perceptions out in front of
him, trying to sense any possible game.

   He saw older hare tracks, expanded by the
faint heat of the midday sun, tree-rat tracks, but nothing larger or
newer.

   Moving slowly, he paused frequently,
letting his senses search for signs of life he could not see. His
fingers strayed to the bow at his back.

   Something stirred-slightly-beneath a
snow-covered hump, but Nylan shook his head. That something was a bear
not likely to emerge for a time, and there was no way the engineer was
going to try to dig out something far more than twice his size.

   He slowed as his eyes caught the tracks
in the snow- something like deer tracks, but larger. He turned his skis
slightly downhill to follow the tracks, his senses ranging ahead.

   From his perceptions the animal seemed to
be a large deer-or an elk. Nylan had never paid much attention to those
sorts of distinctions, but it definitely offered the promise of a lot
of meat.

   The big deer had migrated up from the
lower elevations, or, thought Nylan, fled local hunters seeking game as
the snow in the lower hills melted.

   Nylan must have skied nearly another kay
before he saw the animal, standing in a slight opening under a large
fir. The engineer stopped in the cover of a pine. If he moved farther
toward the deer, the animal would see him, yet he was still more than
fifty cubits away.

   Nylan remained in the shadows of the
pine, as silent as he could be, downwind of the deer, finally deciding
he was as close as he dared. Slowly, quietly, he withdrew an arrow from
the quiver, nocked it, and released it. The next shaft was quicker, as
was the third.

   The buck snorted, and then ran. Nylan
slogged after him, not pressing, but moving steadily. If he had missed,
he’d never catch up. If he’d wounded the beast,
then he ought to be able to wear it down-if it didn’t wear
him down first.

   Within a few cubits of where the buck had
stood were scattered bloodstains. He also found a shaft, wedged in a
pine trunk-probably the third shaft. After recovering that-
carefully-he replaced it in the quiver and put one ski in front of the
other, trudging through the ever-heavier snow along a trail of
scattered blood droppings.

   Sweat began to ooze from his forehead,
and he loosened his jacket and untied the scarf and put it inside the
jacket. He didn’t want to stop to get into the pack.

   A welcome shadow fell across the forest
as a single, white puffy cloud covered the sun.

   Nylan’s legs began to ache, and
the buck turned uphill at a slant. Nylan’s legs ached more.
He glanced ahead, and did not see the hump in the snow-a covered root
or low branch.

   His left ski caught, and he twisted
forward. A line of pain scored his leg, and he grunted, trying not to
yell. For a moment he lay there, letting his perceptions check the leg.
The bones seemed sound, but another wave of pain shot down the leg as
he rolled into a ball to get up.

   Slowly, he stood, casting his senses
ahead.

   The buck was not that far away, perhaps
two hundred cubits, just out of sight, and Nylan slowly slid the left
ski forward, then the right.

   When he reached the next low crest in the
hill, he could see the big deer, almost flailing his way through the
snow.

   Nylan pushed on, trying to ignore the
pain in his leg.

   With the sound of the skis on the
crusting snow, the deer lunged forward, then sagged into a heap.

   Nylan finally stood over the buck, but
the animal was not dead. Blood ran from the side of its mouth, and one
of the shafts through the shoulder had been snapped off. More blood
welled out around the other shaft, the one through the chest. The deer
tried to lift his head; then the neck dropped, but he still panted, and
the blood still oozed out around the shaft in his chest.

   Nylan looked at the deer. Now what? He
didn’t have anything for a humane quick kill. Finally, he
fumbled out the belt knife.

   Even using his perceptions, trying to
make the kill quick, it took him three tries to cut what he thought was
the carotid artery. Three tries, and blood all over his trousers, the
snow, and his gloves. Even so, the deer took forever to die, or so it
seemed to Nylan, as he stood there in the midday glare and the
red-stained snow. The sense of the animal’s pain was great
enough that, had he eaten recently, he wouldn’t have been
able to keep that food in his guts. Even though they needed the meat,
his eyes burned.

   Nylan worked out the one good arrow
shaft, cleaned it on the snow, and put it in his quiver. Then he dug
out the rope and the sheet of heavy plastic. Awkward as it was working
on skis, he left them on, afraid that he’d never get them
back on if he took them off.

   The poor damned deer was heavy, and the
plastic sheeting was smaller than the carcass, which had a tendency to
skid sideways as Nylan pulled it. The snow had gotten even damper under
the bright sun, and most of the way back was uphill. Nylan’s
left leg stabbed with each movement of the skis.

   The rope cut into his shoulders, despite
the heavy jacket, and sweat ran into his eyes. It felt like he had to
stop and rest every hundred cubits, sometimes more often.

   Mid-afternoon came, and went, before he
cleared the forest and reached the bottom of the ridge. There, Nylan
dragged everything onto the packed snow surface of the trail, took off
his skis, and tied them to the sheeting.

   With another series of slow efforts, he
started uphill.

   Halfway up, two figures skied down and
joined him.

   “Ser?”

   Nylan looked up blankly, then shook his
head as he recognized Cessya and Huldran.

   “Frigging big animal,
ser,” observed Huldran with a grin.

   “Heavy animal.” Nylan
nodded tiredly. “I could use some help.” That was
an understatement.

   “We can manage that.”
Huldran studied the red deer. “Lot of meat here.”

   “I hope so. I hope
so.”

   As the two marines unfastened their skis,
Nylan just sat in the snow beside the trail.

   “You all right, ser?”

   “I’m a lot better
since you arrived.” Nylan staggered up as they started to
pull his kill uphill once more. The muscles in his left leg still
knotted with every step, but the pain was less without the strain of
pulling the makeshift sled and deer.

   Saryn was waiting, tripod ready, by the
time the three reached the causeway.

   Nylan set his skis against the tower wall
and sat on the causeway wall, too tired to move for a time. The sun had
just dropped behind the western peaks, and a chill freeze rose.

   “Ser,” ventured
Huldran, “would you mind if I took your skis and poles
down?”

   “I definitely
wouldn’t mind. I’d appreciate that very
much.”

   “Don’t stay out too
long, ser,” added Cessya, picking up his poles.

   “I won’t.”
The coldness of the wind felt good against Nylan’s face, and
he just sat there, staring into space.

   Saryn looked up from the deer carcass,
then at Nylan. “Good animal, but you sure made a
mess.”

   “I’m a poor killer
and a worse butcher,” Nylan said, his voice rasping.
“I wasn’t planning on getting anything this big. I
hope I didn’t spoil anything by taking so long.”

   “It’s cold enough
that it isn’t a problem.” Saryn grinned.
“Gerlich came back earlier. He said there wasn’t
anything within kays.”

   “There isn’t. I went
down that section you call the forest wedge.”

   “And you carted this back that
far? That’s a long climb.”

   “Huldran and Cessya helped me
back up the ridge.”

   Kyseen hurried out the tower door, looked
at the deer, then at Nylan.

   “Mother of darkness! What am I
going to do with that?”

   “Cook it,” snapped
Saryn. “The engineer didn’t cart it back to
waste.”

   “Tonight… the
meal’s done.”

   “I’m sure you can
find something to do with this tomorrow, Kyseen,” Nylan said.
“And they’ll eat anything you cook.”

   “They’re already
complaining about the chicken soup, and it’s not even on the
tables. Why didn’t I wait for the big deer the engineer
brought-that’s what Cessya asked.”

   “Tell her it’s worth
waiting until tomorrow.” Nylan grinned, and slid off the
wall, trying not to wince as his leg hit the stones of the causeway.
“You mind if I leave you, Saryn?”

   “No. You did the hard work.
This is simple drudgery.” Saryn’s skinning knife
flashed again.

   Nylan limped into the tower, and looked
down at his damp and bloody clothes. Should he go straight to the
laundry, or up to find something, like his sole remaining shipsuit,
that was dry?

   “You look even worse than
manure.” Ayrlyn walked toward him from the stairs leading up
from the lower level. “You’re limping. Is any of
that blood yours?”

   “I fell chasing the deer. I
don’t think any of it’s mine.”

   “Let me see.” Her
fingers lifted the trouser bottoms and touched his upper calves.
“It feels like you ripped the muscles. You
shouldn’t be skiing or hunting for a while.”

   Nylan could feel a faint touch of warmth
radiating from her fingers, and a lessening of the cramping. The pain
subsided, slightly, from an acute stabbing into a duller, but heavy
aching.

   Ayrlyn straightened. “I hope it
was a big deer.”

   “It’s a huge
deer,” interjected Huldran as she passed, adding,
“I’ll get the stove in the bathhouse warmed up. You
look like you need it, and there’s a little wood we can
spare.”

   “I’m all
right,” Nylan protested, feeling as though he were being
humored.

   “Enjoy it,” Ayrlyn
laughed. “People are glad to see another solid meal. And you
do look like you need some cleaning up. I’m going to help
Saryn. From what everyone’s said, she needs it, or
she’ll be out there all night.”

   Nylan flushed. “It’s
not that big.”

   The healer grinned before she turned.

   Nylan looked at the stairs up to the top
level. The bathhouse wouldn’t have warmed that much yet. He
suppressed a groan before he started up the stone steps.

 

 

LXIX

 

IN THE WARM lower level of the tower, Nylan worked only in a
light tattered shirt and trousers, occasionally even wiping sweat from
his forehead, as he smoothed and evened the cradie’s
sideboards. At times, he had to stop and massage, gently, the aching
left calf that still had a tendency to cramp if he stood on it too long
without moving.

   A few cubits away, Istril used a single
smoothing blade to plane the sideboards of the cradle that could,
except for the carvings and designs, have been a mate to the cradle
before Nylan.

   The engineer glanced at
Istril’s headboard-which bore a crossed hammer and blade
surrounded by a wreath of pine boughs. He nodded at the detail of the
pine branches.

   “You like it, ser?”
She leaned back against the cool wall stones and wiped her forehead.

   “You did a much better job on
the carving.than I did,” he admitted. “The pine
wreath is good.”

   “Thank you. I worked hard on
it.” She grinned, although the grin was wiped away as she
stopped and massaged her abdomen. “They say the last part is
the hardest.”

   “Of woodworking?”

   “Of bearing a child. I suppose
that goes for anything.”

   Nylan nodded, lowering himself onto his
knees to take the weight off his leg, but the stone was hard, and
he’d have to switch position before long.

   “Jaseen said you and the healer
saved Siret and Kyalynn.”

   “We did what we could. It
happened to be enough.”

   “If… I need
you… would you?”

   Nylan nodded. “If you need us,
we’ll be there.”

   “Thank you.”

   He paused. “Istril, could you
feel what we did?”

   The silver-haired marine blushed
slightly. “A little, ser.”

   “Good. You might try to explore
that talent. It could come in useful.”

   Istril paled. “Ah…
excuse me, ser.” She turned.

   “Are you all right?”

   “I’m fine. Fine as I
can be with someone punching my bladder.” The formerly slim
guard half walked, half waddled up the tower stairs, even though,
except for the distended abdomen, she carried no extra weight.

   Nylan couldn’t imagine carrying
and bearing a child. Having to experience the pain and discomfort
secondhand was bad enough. Maybe Ryba was right. Maybe things would be
better if women ran them. Then, again, maybe they’d just get
used to abusing power, too. The soreness in his knees from kneeling on
the hard rock got to him, and the engineer switched to a sitting
position beside the cradle.

   He picked up the fine-grained file and
studied it, glancing at the assembled cradle in front of him. After
looking at the wood, he set the file aside and picked his knife back up.

   With long strokes that were as gentle as
he could make them, he worked on rounding the left sideboard just a
touch more, trying to make the sides match as closely as he could. The
relief around the rocky hillside on the headboard needed to be deeper,
too, although he sometimes felt as though attempts at art were almost a
waste in a community struggling to survive.

   He looked up at the sound of boots.

   Relyn stood there, studying the cradle.
After a moment, the red-haired man asked, “Were you ever a
crafter, Ser Mage?”

   “No, I can’t say that
I was.” Nylan blotted his forehead with the back of his hand,
then shifted his weight on the hard stone floor.

   “Then the forces of order have
gifted you.” Relyn squatted next to the cradle, his fingers
not quite touching the carving of the single tree rising out of the
rocky hillside.

   “It’s not as good as
Istril’s,” Nylan said, nodding toward the
momentarily abandoned work.

   “She is also one of the gifted
silver-heads.” Relyn eased into a sitting position with his
back against the wall.

   “Are there many in Lornth with
silver hair?”

   “None, except the very old, and
their hair is a white silver, not the silvered silver of the
angels.” Relyn tapped the blunt hook that had replaced his
right hand against the cut stone of the wall in a series of nervous
movements, almost a replacement gesture for tapping fingers or snapping
them.

   “You look upset,” the
engineer observed, lowering his voice, although only Rienadre and
Denalle remained on the woodworking side of the lower level, and they
were laboring together on a chair of some sort across the room, in the
area closest to the kitchen space.

   Relyn glanced at the other two guards.
“It grows warmer. What am I to do? I am not welcome in
Lornth. I would have to fight to prove I was no coward.”

   “I saw you practicing the other
day. The blade looks comfortable in your hand.”

   “I hope to learn enough to
defend myself with the bad hand.”

   Nylan frowned.
“Maybe… maybe, we could figure out a clamp or
something so that you could fix a knife to the hook. Don’t
some fight with a blade and a knife?”

   “That… I have not
heard of.”

   “It’s been
done,” Nylan affirmed.

   “Since you say it, Mage, that
must be so.”

   “Wouldn’t that help?
Enemies wouldn’t think you were defenseless on your
right.”

   “Again, you prove you are
dangerous.” Relyn frowned. “Could you make such a
device?”

   “I’ll see what I can
do. Let me see your knife, though.”

   Relyn eased the knife out and passed it
hilt-first to the engineer.

   Nylan looked at it for a time before
speaking. “I think I can, maybe bend some rod locks so
they’ll hold the hilt.” He handed back the knife.
“I take it you’d rather not stay in
Westwind.”

   “I am no mage. Nor am I a
mighty and powerful warrior like the hunter. Nor did I handle a blade,
even with two hands, as well as the best of these guards. Even those
bearing a child work and improve their skills-and with those devil
blades you forged?” Relyn shook his head. “Also, I
do not trust the marshal. She smiles, but she smiled when she took off
my hand.”

   “Why are you telling
me?”

   “I must talk to someone, and I
distrust you the least, because you would build rather than
destroy.”

   “Thanks,” answered
Nylan dryly. “I suppose I deserve that.”

   Relyn shrugged apologetically.

   “Do you think the marshal will
have you killed in your sleep or something?” Nylan asked,
wishing he had not even as he spoke.

   “It is possible. It is possible
that lightning might strike me as well. I do not fear
either… now.”

   “Ah… but you think
your welcome might wear thin?”

   “There is not that much food,
is there?”

   “I did bring in that deer, and
that means more game might be moving higher into the
mountains.”

   “That will be true for a time,
but only for a time.”

   “Where could you go?”

   “South, north, east-anywhere
but west.” Relyn grinned briefly. “I do not have to
decide that until the snows melt, perhaps later.” He paused.
“If I should need to depart sooner?”

   “I’ll let you know if
I know” Nylan laughed softly. “Sometimes,
I’m among the last to discover things.”

   “It is often that way when one
deals with women.”

   “Even in Lornth?”

   “Even in Lornth, even as a
holder’s son,” Relyn affirmed, as he stood, using
the hook to catch the edge of a stone wall block and to help balance
him. “Thank you, Ser Mage.” He offered Nylan a head
bow before turning andxheading for the steps.

   Nylan looked down at the cradle. A
daughter coming? That was hard to believe as well.

 

 

LXX

 

NYLAN TOOK ONE end of the saw and looked across the
half-cubit-thick fir trunk to Huldran. “Ready?”
Another trunk lay beside the path, ready for their efforts when they
finished cutting and splitting the first.

   “Ready as you are,
ser.” The broad-shouldered marine grinned.

   “I hope,” Nylan
grunted as he pulled the blade handle toward him,
“you’re a lot more ready than that.”

   “Do we really need this wood
now?” asked Huldran.

   “We could get more storms. Even
if we don’t, do you think it will go to waste? After this
winter? Besides, we can’t plant now. We’re just
about out of wood planking for new fixtures, and there’s only
so much equipment for people to hunt. Also, we’ll need wood
for the kitchen stove and,” Nylan laughed, “to
defrost the bathhouse.”

   “You used it more than I
did,” pointed out Huldran.

   “We probably used it more than
about half the guards did together.”

   “If we get more guards,
they’ll have to use it. You know what standing next to
Denalle is like?”

   “Do I want to find
out?”

   Huldran shook her head over the motion of
the saw.

   “I was afraid you’d
say that.”

   As they sawed, Gerlich opened the tower
door, and he and Narliat walked out across the causeway and leaned
their skis against the low wall near the end of the causeway. Gerlich
carried his great bow, the second one, since the first had broken, and
both bore packs.

   “Off hunting?” asked
Nylan, without stopping his efforts with the saw.

   “We’ll see what we
can find,” Gerlich answered. “Now that
it’s warmer, and Narliat’s learned to ski better,
he can help me pack back whatever we get.” The hunter
grinned. “There might even be another one of those big red
deer.” The grin faded. “Sometimes, Engineer,
sometimes…”

   “I’m just an
engineer,” Nylan admitted.

   “He is also a mage,”
added Narliat.

   “I know that,” said
Gerlich. “He’s the one who
doesn’t.” The tall man hoisted his skis.
“We need to be off.”

   The two carried their skis up the trail
toward the top of the ridge.

   “That’s a case of
white demon leading the white demon,” puffed out Huldran.

   “He brings back food.”

   “Sometimes… and
he’s not shy about letting the whole tower know.”

   When Nylan and Huldran finished the first
cut, a piece of trunk a little over a cubit in length lay on the stones
of the causeway.

   “Do we split or keep
sawing?” asked Huldran.

   “Saw another,”
suggested Nylan.

   “This is a lot of sawing for a
trunk that’s not all that thick.”

   “It’s as thick as a
single horse can drag. Anything bigger, we’d have to saw
where it was felled, and I don’t want to struggle with a saw
in chest-deep snow.” Nylan paused, and Huldran staggered.

   “Tell me when you’re
going to stop,” she said.

   “Sorry.” Nylan tried
to catch his breath, grateful that the air was no longer cold enough to
bite into his lungs.

   “Ready?” asked
Huldran after several moments. “Let’s forget about
splitting until we get this thing cut.”

   They resumed sawing, even as Fierral
marched out with nearly a squad of guards. All of them went up to the
stable, and brought back three mounts, on which were strapped the other
crosscut saw, and two of the four axes.

   “More wood?” asked
Nylan, pausing with the saw, then adding, too late, to Huldran,
“I’m stopping.”

   Huldran stumbled back several steps, and
barely kept from toppling into the deeper snow only by grabbing onto
Rienadre.

   “I’m sorry,
Huldran.”

   “Ser…
please?”

   Fierral shook her head.
“There’s not much else we can do right now. So
we’ll cut and trim as much as we can. We’ll leave
the smaller limbs in cut lengths for later in the year when we can
bring them back with the cart, and we’ll drag back the
trunks. Saryn thinks we should set aside more and more to start
seasoning so that we’ll have a supply for making
planks.”

   “She’s probably
right.”

   After Fierral and the squad trudged up
the trail to the ridge, both Nylan and Huldran took a break, for some
water and other necessities, before they resumed. As they sawed, Ayrlyn
and Saryn came and trudged up to the stables to feed livestock, along
with Istril, who was worried about the mounts.

   When the three returned, Nylan and
Huldran had only finished five more sections.

   “You two are slow,”
jibed Saryn.

   Nylan took his hands off the saw-and
Huldran staggered again, almost toppling into the snow-and gestured.
“You want to take this end?”

   “Ah… no, thank you,
Nylan. I’m working on finishing those dividers for the fourth
level.”

   “I thought we were out of wood
for that sort of thing,” said Huldran, leaning on the
now-immobile saw.

   “They were rough-cut eight-days
ago. The finish work is what takes the time,” answered Saryn.

   “What about you,
Ayrlyn?” asked Nylan. “Room dividers?”

   “Healing. I’m worried
about this rash little Dephnay’s got. It keeps coming back.
And Ellysia’s having trouble nursing, and there
aren’t any milk substitutes here.”

   “We need a few goats or cows,
you think?” asked the engineer.

   “We need everything.”
Ayrlyn shook her head as she left with the others.

   “Ser, if you stop to talk to
everyone, this trunk’s still going to be here by the time we
plant crops.” Huldran cleared her throat. “And I
did ask if you’d let me know when you stop sawing.
Twice.”

   “Sorry.” Nylan looked
down at the slush underfoot and used his boot to sweep it away from
where he stood. “All right?”

   Before the next interruption, they
managed almost a dozen more cuts, leaving them with most of the first
trunk cut into lengths to be split. Despite the gloves, Nylan could
feel blisters forming on his hands, and the soreness growing in his
arms and shoulders.

   They were halfway through yet another
cut, one that would leave only a few more cuts to finish the second
trunk, when the horses reappeared on the ridge, dragging more fir
trunks-two each-down the not-quite-slushy packed snow of the trail
toward the tower.

   Fierral and her squad were laughing by
the time they reached the causeway and stacked the six trunks up.

   “You two are so slow.”

   “Do you want to do
this?” asked Huldran, without slowing her sawing.

   With grins, Denalle and Rienadre shook
their heads.

   “We’ll just bring in
the trunks, thank you,” added Fierral. “Has Kadran
rung the triangle yet?”

   “No.” But as Nylan
spoke, Kadran came out and rang the triangle for the midday meal.

   “Good timing,” added
Selitra.

   Huldran let go of the saw, and Nylan
stumbled forward and rammed the saw handle into his gut, so hard that
he exhaled with a grunt.

   “So sorry, ser.” She
grinned.

   “All right,” Nylan
mumbled. “Next time I’ll remember.”

   “What was all that
about?” asked Kadran.

   “Nothing,” answered
Nylan. “What are you serving?”

   “Venison, your leftover
venison, spiced with pine tips, a few not quite moldy potatoes, and a
handful of softened pine nuts. The bread is more bitter than ever, but
the healer says it’s edible.”

   “It’s better than
starving.”

   “Not much,” commented
Berlis, as she followed Denalle and Rienadre into the tower.

   Fierral, Selitra, and Weindre did not go
inside, but led the horses back up to the stables.

   “More wood will
help,” said the cook. “When will you have some
split?”

   “Mid-afternoon,”
Nylan guessed.

   “I’ll send Hryessa
and Murkassa out for it. They can take that kind of cold.”
Kadran paused. “It’s not really that cold anymore,
but they think it is. Flatlanders!” She snorted.

   “You can tell she’s
from the Purgatory Mountains,” said Huldran as Kadran left.
“Let’s finish the last cut before we eat. Fierral
and the others will take that long to get the horses settled anyway.
Then we can try splitting what we’ve sawed when we get
back.”

   Nylan took up his end of the saw once
more.

   After the midday meal, Nylan picked up
one of the axes and looked at the sections of trunk. “I
don’t know.”

   He lifted the axe and brought it down.
The axe head buried itself in the wood, which creaked, but did not
split. He lifted the axe, and the wood came with it. So he brought wood
and axe down on the frozen ground together. It took him two more
attempts before the circular chunk of wood split into two unequal
sections.

   “I think sawing is
easier.” Nylan panted as he half leaned on the axe handle.

   “Let me try.”

   “Be my guest.” Nylan
handed the axe to Huldran.

   Her first attempt also stuck in the
larger log section, but the second effort split that section in two.
“Only took me two.” The blond guard smiled at
Nylan. “Splitting’s easier.”

   “You were working on a smaller
section. Try one of the big ones.”

   Huldran shrugged and lifted the axe
again. It took her two attempts to split the log chunk.
“It’s tough. Maybe we don’t have the
technique.”

   “Green wood is harder, I
think.”

   They alternated efforts, slowly
improving, until they had reduced the sawed sections into chunks of
stove and furnace wood. The guards who passed the wood-splitting
avoided commenting after a quick look at Nylan’s face.

   About mid-afternoon, as promised by
Kadran, Hryessa and Murkassa peered out from the tower door, some time
after Nylan and Huldran had returned to sawing another green fir trunk.

   “We’ve got plenty
there for you,” said the engineer.

   Hryessa stepped out quickly, then stopped
by the pile of split wood, looking at the open jackets and the two
sweating figures. Her breath formed a faint white cloud as she spoke.
“It’s still cold here. It is not as bad as before,
but…” She shrugged. “Yet you are
hot.”

   “It’s so cold up here
that you’d think the lowlanders would leave us alone,
wouldn’t you?” asked Huldran, not stopping her
sawing.

   Nylan just kept moving his end of the saw.

   Murkassa, stooping to fill her arms with
split wood, shook her head sadly. “They are men.”

   “It is sad, in a
way,” added Hryessa, as she struggled back into the tower,
leaving Huldran and Nylan to their sawing.

   “I’m not sure
it’s sad being a man,” Nylan puffed as he kept the
blade moving.

   “It is if you’re as
hidebound as the locals are.”

   “The women have it much
worse.”

   “For now,” pointed
out Huldran.

   “Point taken,” Nylan
said. “Let’s take a break.” As he slowed
the saw, he glanced to the west where the sun hung just above the
Westhorns.

   The tower door opened, and Murkassa and
Hryessa trooped out again, this time accompanied by Jaseen and Kadran.

   “They said you had a lot of
wood here,” explained Jaseen, glancing over the pile.
“You two make a good team.”

   “True,” said Huldran.
“I don’t like taking breaks, and he won’t
quit until the job’s done.”

   “I need something to
drink,” Nylan told Huldran. She nodded, and he walked into
the tower and then out through the north door and through the archway,
where most of the ice had slowly melted, leaving the split stone floor
perpetually damp. He made his way to the laundry area where both tubs,
full of clothes and chill water, stood with no one nearby. Nylan held
out a hand toward the stove. It was warm.

   He shrugged. With little soap, soaking
helped. He wondered if some of the recently cut and split wood had
found its way into the bathhouse warming stove. Why not, now?

   The water was beginning to flow more
regularly, and Nylan drank from the laundry tap, trying not to spill
too much on the floor, then used the jakes. As he walked back, he
passed Siret, carrying Kyalynn, as he started through the north tower
door.

   “You have the laundry
detail?” he asked.

   “Yes, ser. It’s
better that way now that I’m so far along. I still do my
blade practice and exercises, though.”

   Nylan shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it. Letting the water warm to
room temperature probably helps get things cleaner, too.”

   “I hadn’t planned it
that way…”

   “Don’t tell
anyone.” With a grin, Nylan held the door, then closed it
after them.

   “You took long
enough,” said Huldran.

   “Some things take a little
time.” He took up his end of the saw, looking at the third or
so of the trunk that remained to be cut.

   Before they finished cutting two more
lengths, the kitchen crew had carted off all the split wood, and Nylan
had asked Jaseen to carry one armful out to the bathhouse stove.

   “You might get cleaner clothes
that way… also warmer wash water,” he told the
medtech. Except she’s more like a healer now. No medtechs on
the Roof of the World, he thought.

   “Sounds like a good
idea.” Jaseen winked at him.

   Nylan ignored the wink, wondering why she
had offered the gesture, and kept sawing. After they finished sawing
their fifth trunk, with the sun starting to drop behind the western
peaks, they began splitting.

   Whheeeee… eeeee…

   At the sound of horses, Nylan glanced
uphill. Fierral led the three horses over the ridge, each dragging two
mid-sized trunks.

   Huldran and Nylan looked at each other,
then at the three trunks piled by the trail road.

   “We’re never going to
gel caught up.”

   “Just think of it this way.
We’re working on next winter. So we can burn wood all winter
long and be warm,” said Nylan. “And have warm
showers and water that’s only cold, not liquid ice.”

   “It does sound better when you
put it that way.” Huldran picked up the axe again and split a
half-trunk section into quarters, then the larger quarter in half,
before handing the axe back to Nylan.

   “You’re going to be
stiff, Engineer,” laughed Fierral as the logging crew stacked
six more long trunks beside the trail path.

   “Since you’re done
for the day,” grunted Nylan, splitting another section,
“let Huldran have the other axe so we can finish this. Then,
your people can take down the split wood when they go in.”

   Fierral unstrapped the axe, and Huldran
took it.

   Denalle, winding up one of the hauling
ropes, groaned.

   “You want to do what the
engineer’s doing?” asked Fierral.

   “Been doing it all
day…” mumbled Rienadre.

   “You got breaks. There were six
of us.” Fierral raised her voice. “Denalle,
Rienadre, and Berlis-you don’t have to climb to the stable,
but you get to cart in wood. Selitra, Weindre, and I will stable and
rub down the horses.”

   Several groans echoed around the causeway.

   “You want to be warm-you cart
wood.”

   Fierral, Selitra, and Weindre started up
the shadowed snow trail to the stables with the horses. The other three
guards carried sets of skis into the tower, then straggled back across
the causeway to stack wood in their arms.

   Huldran held her axe for a moment and
looked at Nylan. They both grinned. Then, Nylan set down his axe and
massaged his right shoulder with his gloved left hand.

   “I’m already sore,
and there’s two days’ work stacked behind
us.”

   “We want to be warm next
winter. Someone told me that,” returned the stocky blond
guard.

   Nylan looked at the four cut, but
unsplit, trunk sections. “There aren’t too many
left here.”

   “Here comes Gerlich,”
said Huldran, “but I don’t see Narliat.”

   “Maybe he’s following
the great hunter.”

   “Maybe… except he
always likes to get to the food first.” Huldran brought the
axe down again.

   Nylan followed her example, and by the
time Gerlich dragged his bundle up to the causeway, they were cleaning
the axes. Rienadre was stacking another armful of wood, but the other
guards had not returned for their third load.

   “Where’s
Narliat?” asked Huldran.

   “Gone,” answered
Gerlich. “I was trying to pack this boar-thing up the slope,
and when I stopped, he was gone.” The hunter gestured to the
dead boar. “This is heavy. Maybe not quite as heavy as a red
deer, but there’s a lot of meat there.”

   Again, Nylan could sense the wrongness
about Gerlich’s words, and he instinctively looked for
Ayrlyn, but the healer was nowhere around, not that she had any reason
to be out in the twilight and cold.

   “It does look like a
lot,” Nylan temporized.

   “Sneaky little bastard,
anyway,” said Rienadre as she staggered away under a load of
wood.

   “He was born here, not on
Heaven,” said Gerlich, setting his skis against the wall by
the door. “I’m going to get Saryn, to see if she
can help me butcher this.”

   As he went inside, Kadran came out to
ring the triangle. She looked toward the carcass. “The
hunter’s back. What’s that?”

   “Gerlich brought back a
boar,” answered Huldran. “Of course, he lost
Narliat along the way.”

   “Why does this happen to
us?” asked the cook. “We’ve got a thin
soup and barely enough bread, and he brings in a juicy boar, and
everyone’s going to complain and ask why we’ve got
soup.” She rang the triangle.

   “We’re
coming!” called Fierral.

   Saryn and Ayrlyn followed Gerlich across
the causeway, Saryn bearing the tripod and the hooks. Gerlich hoisted
the carcass into place after Saryn set the tripod into the packed snow
of the trail beyond the end of the causeway stones.

   “We’ll gut this and
rough-cut it now,” said Saryn, “and stack the
sections in the archway by the north door. That’s plenty
cold. Then Kyseen and Kadran can figure out what to cook and when later
tonight or in the morning.”

   “Fine,” said Gerlich.
“Fine.”

   “Another good meal,”
offered Weindre as she, Selitra, and Fierral passed the tripod.

   “Not tonight,” said
Ayrlyn. “Tomorrow.”

   Selitra nodded to Gerlich, but the hunter
did not return the gesture.

   “Let’s take some
wood.” Fierral looked at the remaining split sections.

   “Trust Denalle to leave
some,” muttered Weindre, bending to scoop lengths into her
arms.

   “There’s not that
much left,” said Fierral.

   “I’ll take a load,
too,” said Nylan. “That should do it.”

   “I’ll rack the
axes,” offered Huldran.

   “Thanks.” Nylan
followed the guards down to the lower level and into the far kitchen
corner, and the makeshift wood bins there.

   “See!” snapped
Kyseen, stirring a kettle. “Even the engineer carts
wood.”

   Nylan nodded after dumping his armload
and trudged to the bathhouse to wash up. The wash tubs were empty, and
tilted to dry. He supposed the clothes were hanging on lines around the
tower, on one side of the fifth level, usually.

   Fierral stood in one shower stall, using
the tap to rinse her face and hands. In another was Selitra, stripped
to the waist. Nylan passed and quickly looked away.

   He used the tap valve in the laundry area
to wash his hands and face, blotting the chill water from his face with
his hands, and shaking the water off his hands in turn.

   “Still better than trying to
find the stream.” Fierral laughed as she joined him in
walking back to the great room.

   “That’s true. I hope
we can get enough wood to keep the place warmer next winter.”

   “That would be nice.”

   Nylan slipped into his spot on the bench
before Ryba or Gerlich had arrived. For a moment, he just sat, his head
in his hands, realizing just how tired he was, and how sore he was
going to be-and there were days more of wood sawing and splitting to
come! Maybe it would improve his muscular condition, but would he
survive it?

   Ayrlyn sat down across from him. Neither
spoke for a time, until Nylan finally lifted his head.

   “Hard day?” Ayrlyn
asked.

   “Yes. I wasn’t built
to be a lumberjack.”

   “Thin soup, again,”
said Ayrlyn. “They won’t like it.”

   Kadran’s and Ayrlyn’s
prediction seemed fulfilled. As the seats filled, Nylan listened.

   “… thin soup, and
there’s a big pig carcass in the back
archway…”

   “… always hold out a
good meal for tomorrow when we get crap today…”

   “Why do the hunters always
bring the good stuff in late?”

   Holding Dephnay in a half pack, Ellysia
sat at the second table, beside Siret and Kyalynn. Siret cradled
Kyalynn in her arms. Dephnay kept squirming until Ellysia put the child
up to her shoulder and patted her back.

   Istril sat down heavily across from Siret
and beside Hryessa, and then Ryba walked past the two mothers and eased
herself into her chair. “I see Gerlich isn’t
here.”

   “Not yet.”

   “He’s
washing,” added Ayrlyn.

   Ryba waited until Gerlich sat down.
“I understand that Narliat left,” she said evenly.

   Gerlich turned to face the marshal.
“I was pulling the carcass up the hill. When I looked back he
was gone.”

   “Just like that?”

   “That boar was heavy, and I
didn’t have enough rope for both of us.”

   “Did Narliat say anything
before he left?” Ryba nodded to Ayrlyn.

   “No. He talked about how
he’d never be an armsman again, but he’s said that
a number of times.” Gerlich took a short swallow of tea from
his mug.

   Again, Nylan could sense the whiteness,
the partial wrongness surrounding the hunter’s answers.

   Kyseen set one of the heavy caldrons on
the table, then used the ladle to fill Ryba’s bowl/trencher.
Kadran followed with the baskets of bread.

   “Did he say anything
else?” Ryba asked.

   “Nothing special.”

   “Where do you think he
went?”

   “I don’t know. He was
headed west, I think, but he could have doubled back or turned north or
south.”

   “He won’t go south,
not far,” said Ayrlyn. “Straight south is just more
mountains. Southwest leads to the local equivalent of the hottest
demons’ hell. It’s a place called the Grass Hills,
except there’s not much grass, they say.”

   “West or north,
then,” observed Ryba with a nod. “And that means
the locals will know more about us. Well… they would sooner
or later.” She paused, then added, “I’m
glad you were able to bring back that boar.”

   “My pleasure, Ryba. My
pleasure.”

   Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances, and
Ryba shook her head.

   Gerlich frowned.

   “We’ll have solid
meals tomorrow,” Ryba added. “Might I have some
bread?”

   Nylan passed her the basket. The soup was
more tasty than many previous efforts, and hot, for which he was
grateful. The bread was bitter, but the bitterness didn’t
bother him. His shoulders were tight and ached, and while the tea
helped, it didn’t help enough.

   Later, after a meal of small talk and
speculation about how soon the snow would really melt, Nylan dragged
himself up to the top level, following Ryba.

   He sat on the end of the couch.
“Gerlich isn’t telling everything.”

   “He’s
lying,” Ryba said tiredly, shifting her weight on the couch.
“I didn’t need you and Ayrlyn to tell me that.
He’s lied from the beginning.”

   “Are you going to let him keep
doing this? You killed Mran.”

   “Gerlich hasn’t
openly defied me, or you, or anyone. We know he’s lying, but
knowing and proving it aren’t the same thing.” Ryba
eased her legs into another position. “I hate this. Now my
legs get swollen all the time. I’m already regarded as a
tyrant by some, and I can’t throw him out or kill him until
he gives some obvious reason. He won’t, though, because he
can’t stand the hot weather below, and that makes it even
worse. He wants to be marshal, and he’s plotting to replace
me.”

   “How? No one likes him, except
maybe Selitra.”

   “Who said anything about liking
him? He’s using Narliat, I’m sure, although I
can’t see it clearly, to try to find some local
backing.”

   “Local backing?”

   Ryba laughed harshly. “Gerlich
is a man. He can make the argument that the locals can’t take
Westwind, but they can ensure that one of their kind-a good old
boy-runs it. He’ll try to join the local gentry, or whatever
passes for it… and, if we’re not careful, he
could.”

   “What about your…
visions?”

   “They show Westwind surviving.
But it could survive under Gerlich’s descendants as
well.” Ryba took a deep breath and shifted position again.
“I hate this.”

   Nylan frowned. Like Gerlich, Ryba
wasn’t telling the whole story. Then again, were any of them
telling the whole story? He licked his lips.

   “We need some rest.”
Ryba leaned over and blew out the small candle, then stripped off her
leathers and eased into her tentlike nightgown.

   Nylan undressed in the dark.

 

 

LXXI

 

NYLAN SET THE cradle-pale wood glistening in the indirect
light that filtered through the single armaglass window of the
tower’s top level-where Ryba would see it.

   Then he drew into the dimness behind the
stones of the chimney and central pedestal and waited, sensing her
climbing the steps. In time, the sound of her steps, slower slightly
with each passing day and heavy with the weight of the child she
carried, announced her arrival.

   Nylan watched as she bent down, as her
fingers touched the wood, stroked the curved edges of the side panels,
as her eyes focused on the single tree rising out of the rocky
landscape in the center of the headboard.

   “Do you like it?” He
stepped out from the corner. While the cradle was no surprise to her,
he had tried to keep the details from her as he had finished the
carving and smoothing-all the laborious finish work.

   Ryba straightened, her face solemn.
“Yes. I like it. So will she, when she is older, and so will
her children.”

   “Another vision?” he
asked, trying to keep his voice light.

   “You make everything well,
Nylan, from towers to cradles.” Ryba sank onto the end of the
bed.

   “I didn’t do so well
with the bathhouse.”

   “Even that will be fine. We
just didn’t have enough wood this winter to keep it as warm
as we needed.”

   “The water lines needed to be
covered more deeply.” His eyes went to the cradle again.

   So did Ryba’s. “It is
beautiful. What do you want me to say?”

   “I don’t
know.” Nylan didn’t know, only that, again,
something was missing. “I don’t know.”

 

 

Part III - THE SPRING OF WESTWIND

 

 

LXXII

 

IN THE COLD starlight, the short man struggles through the
knee-deep snow, snow that is heavy and damp, that clings to everything
but his leathers. The snow glistens with a whiteness that provides
enough light for him to continue. His boots crunch through the icy
crust covering the road that will not be used by others for at least
another handful of eight-days.

   The soft sound of wings mixes with the
light breeze that sifts through the limbs of the pines and firs, and a
dark shadow crosses the sky, then dives into a distant clearing.

   The traveler shivers, but his feet keep
moving, mechanically, as if he is afraid to stop.

   Occasionally, he glances back over his
shoulder, as though he flees from someone, but his tracks remain the
only ones on the slow-melting snow. On his back he carries a pack,
nearly empty.

   As he lifts one foot and then the other,
his mittened fingers touch the outline of the cylindrical object in the
pouch that swings around his neck under jacket, tunic, and shirt. He
tries not to shiver as he thinks of the object, instead continuing to
concentrate on reaching the warmer lands beyond the Westhorns, the
lower lands where the heights do not freeze a man into solid ice.

   He puts one foot in front of the other.

 

 

LXXIII

 

NYLAN GLANCED FROM the bed to the half-open tower window.
Outside, the sun shone across the snowfields, and rivulets formed
pathways on the snow, draining off the grainy white surface and into
the now-slushy roads and pathways. In a few scattered places, the brown
of earth, the dark gray of rock, or the bleached tan of dead grass
peered through the disappearing snow cover. Despite the carpet of fir
branches, much of the road from the tower up to the stables was more
quagmire than path.

   The east side of the tower was half
ringed with meltwater that froze at night and cleared by day, so much
that from the eastern approach to the causeway, the tower resembled the
moated castle that Nylan had rejected building.

   His eyes flicked from the window back to
Ryba, whose own eyes were glazed with concentration and the effort of
measured breathing. On the other side of the lander couch stood Ayrlyn,
her fingers resting lightly on Ryba’s enlarged abdomen.
Beside her was Jaseen.

   “I’m hot,”
panted the marshal.

   The joined couches had been moved toward
the window because the ice and snow melting off the slate stone roof
had revealed more than a few leaks that dripped down into the top level
of the tower.

   Nylan used the clean but tattered cloth
to blot the dampness off Ryba’s face, then put his hand on
her forehead.

   “That feels good.”

   “Good,” affirmed
Nylan.

   “Just a gentle push…
gentle…”

   “Hurts…
tight…” the marshal responded.
“Dyliess?”

   “She’s doing fine,
Ryba,” said Ayrlyn.

   “I’m…
not…” Ryba shivered. “Cold
now.”

   After he drew the blankets around her
shoulders, Nylan blotted Ryba’s damp forehead again.
“Easy,” he said. “You’re doing
fine, too.”

   “Easy… for
you… to say.”

   “I know.” Nylan kept
his tone light, although, with his perceptions, he could sense that
Ryba’s labor was going well, if any labor, and the effort and
pain involved, could be said to be going well.

   “Push… a little
harder.”

   “Am
pushing…”

   “Stop…”

   “… tell me to push,
then not push… make up your mind…”

   Nylan held back an inadvertent grin at
Ryba’s asperity.

   “We’re trying to do
this with as little stress on you and Dyliess as possible.”

   “… little
stress?”

   Jaseen nodded, but said nothing.

   Nylan patted away the sweat on
Ryba’s forehead, then squeezed her arm gently.

   “Push!” demanded
Ayrlyn.

   The marshal pushed, turning red.

   “You have to breathe,
too,” reminded Ayrlyn after the push.

   “Hot…”
gasped Ryba.

   Nylan eased the blankets away from her
shoulders.

   “All right… get
ready…” said Ayrlyn.

   Through it all, Nylan stood by,
occasionally touching Ryba, infusing a sense of order, though that
order was not essential. In the end, a small head crowned, and Jaseen
eased the small bloody figure into the light, and onto the Roof of the
World.

   “In a bit, you’ll
need to push again,” said Ayrlyn.

   “I… know…
let me see her,” panted Ryba.

   When the cord was tied and cut, Ayrlyn
eased the small figure onto Ryba’s chest. Dyliess seemed to
look around, then turned toward her mother’s breast, her
mouth opening and fastening in place.

   “You little piglet,”
murmured Ryba.

   “Like her mother,”
affirmed Nylan. “She’s concentrating on
what’s important.”

   His senses extended over his daughter,
taking in the hair that would be silver and the narrower face that was
also from his Svennish heritage. In some ways, almost, she felt like
Kyalynn, Siret’s silver-haired daughter.

   Nylan swallowed, then looked away toward
the window, back out to the spring, and the melting snow, back out to
the few green shoots that hurried through the patches of white.

   Not now, he thought, not now, and he
forced a smile, which turned into a real one as he watched Dyliess,
even though his chest was tight, and a sense of chaos swirled through
his thoughts.

   “They’re both
fine,” Ayrlyn affirmed.

   Jaseen nodded.

   Ryba’s eyes closed, a
half-smile on her face.

 

 

LXXIV

 

“DON’T WE KNOW where we’re
heading? Or when?” Hissl walks to the barracks door. By
looking out and down the street, he can see the haze of light green-the
grasslands that stretch all the way from Clynya to the South Branch of
the River Jeryna.

   Koric shrugs. “Lord Sillek is
not telling anyone. We know we will be moving against either Lord
Ildyrom or against those angels on the Roof of the World. One way or
the other… we have to be ready.”

   “He hasn’t
said?” asks the white wizard.

   “No. Rimmur said he almost took
off his head for asking.” Koric laughs. “I
can’t say as I blame Lord Sillek. If people knew where or
when, they’d be ready, and our armsmen would be killed. As it
is, everyone’s waiting for him to make a mistake, any
mistake. Everyone talks. You know how hard it is to keep things quiet.
Ildyrom probably has spies in every tavern in Clynya, and a few other
places as well, if you know as to what I mean.”

   “Yes, I know.” Hissl
smiles faintly.

   “You seen any sign of the
Jeranyi, yet, in your glass?” Koric asks.

   “Not anywhere close to the
grasslands, but the grass is short, and the way’s still
muddy.”

   “Could they come up the river?
Don’t you wizards have trouble with running water?”
Koric fingers the hilt of the big blade on the bench before him.

   ‘ “I can see
what’s on the water, not what’s in it or under it.
But they wouldn’t swim all the way upstream from
Berlitos.” Hissl forces a chuckle.

   “No, Wizard, I guess they
wouldn’t. But you be looking for them. I wouldn’t
want any surprises. Neither would Lord Sillek.”

   “I’ll be
looking,” Hissl replies. “I’ll certainly
be looking”

 

 

LXXV

 

FROM THE CAUSEWAY, Ayrlyn and Nylan looked at the fields and
the stretches of mud that had been crude roads the previous fall and
snow-covered trails through the winter. The fields and meadows were
white and brown, still primarily white, although long green shoots
poked through the white in places.

   “Snow lilies.” Ayrlyn
pointed to a green stem rising from the snow.

   “Some things will grow in the
strangest conditions,” mused Nylan. “They grow
through the snow, and we can’t even walk up the hill without
sinking knee-deep in mud. We’re not moving much anywhere for
a while.”

   “The stables are even more of a
mess because all that packed snow turned into ice and then melted all
at once. Fierral’s in a terrible mood. Then, I’m
surprised she’s not that way more often.”

   “Why?” asked the
engineer.

   “How would you like to be the
chief armsmaster under Ryba? Fierral knows that nothing she does will
ever match Ryba. That means she’ll always be the chief
flunky.”

   “Hadn’t thought about
that, but it makes sense.”

   “Of course it does.”
Ayrlyn snorted.

   “We won’t be seeing
any bandits or invaders for a while, I’d bet.”

   “No traders, either,”
pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “You could ride out, and it
would be dry when you returned.”

   “If it didn’t rain,
but I couldn’t bring much back without the cart, and how
would I get it out of here?”

   “Hadn’t thought about
mud.” Nylan turned his eyes downhill and to the east. Below
the lower outfalls, the cold rushing water, both from the runoff
diverted from around the bathhouse and tower and from the drainage
system, had cut an even deeper gouge through the low point of the muddy
swathe that had been a road, a depression that was fast becoming a
small gorge.

   “I knew I should have built a
culvert there,” muttered Nylan.

   “Exactly when did you have
time?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “The road to the ridge needs to
be paved.” Nylan ignored her question, since the only free
time he’d had, had been after the snow had fallen.
“It’s almost impossible to leave the tower
anyway.” He glanced toward the fir trunks stacked beyond the
causeway, noting that the trunks on the bottom of the pile were more
than half sunk into the mud. “I suppose we can cut and split
the rest of that wood.”

   “You always have to have
something to do, don’t you?”

   “There’s always more
to do than time to do it,” he pointed out.

   She nodded slowly. “Do you
think that when you die someone will build a huge stone memorial that
says, ‘he accomplished the impossible’? Or
‘he did more than any three other
people’?”

   “No one will build me any
memorials, Ryba’s prophecies notwithstanding.”
Nylan paused, and then his voice turned sardonic.
“Don’t you know that’s why I built the
tower? It’s the only memorial I’ll ever have, and
I’m the only one who knows it-except you.”

   “You’re impossible,
Engineer.” Ayrlyn turned to him, and her eyes were dark
behind the brown. “She sees the future, but you take the
weight of that future.”

   “I suppose so.” Nylan
shrugged. “But who else will? The guards, even Ryba, laugh at
my building, my obsession- I’m sure that’s what
it’s called. The predictably obsessed engineer.”
His words turned bitter. “If this were a novel or a trideo
thriller, the editors would cut out all the parts about building.
That’s boring. You know, heroes are supposed to slay the
enemy, but no one has to worry about shelter or heat or coins or
stables or whether the roads need to be paved or whether you need
bridges or culverts to keep them from being impassible. Bathhouses are
supposed to build themselves, didn’t you know? Ryba orders
sanitation, and it just happens. No matter that the snow is deep enough
to sink a horse without a sign. No matter that most guards would rather
stink than use cold water. No matter that poor sanitation kills more
people in low-tech cultures than battles. But building is boring. So is
making better weapons, I suppose. Using them is respected and glorious
and fires the imagination. Frig… every mythological smith
has been the butt of jokes, and I’m beginning to understand
why.”

   “You’re angry,
aren’t you?”

   “Me? The calm, contained
engineer? Angry?” Nylan swallowed. “Never mind. I
didn’t mean to upset you.”

   “You didn’t upset me,
Nylan. And I do understand. Do you think that going out trading is any
different? We need all these goods to survive, but trading
isn’t glamorous like winning battles. Do you know what
it’s like to have every man stare at your hair and run his
eyes over you as if you wore nothing? To know you can’t lift
a blade because women are less than commodities, and almost anything
goes? And if you do use your blade, you won’t be able to
trade for what you need?” Her voice softened and took on an
ironic tone. “Besides, no one wants to trade with someone who
kills some idiot and then has to empty her guts on her own
boots.” The redhead laughed. “They don’t
do trideo dramas about people who trade for flour and chickens,
either.”

   “No. They focus on the great
heroes,” Nylan said. “Like Ryba.”

   “Part of that’s not
easy, either,” Ayrlyn pointed out. “She does see
things, you know.”

   “I know.”

   “It must be terrible.”

   “I suppose so.” Nylan
didn’t want to say more, feeling as though he’d
poured out more than he’d ever intended, and Ayrlyn
wasn’t even the one with whom he slept.

   “I mean it. If she has a
vision, or whatever it is, can she trust it? Does she dare to oppose
it? What should she do to make it occur, if it’s an outcome
she wants? What are the options and trade-offs?”

   “You still talk like a comm
officer, sometimes.”

   “I probably always
will.” A brief laugh followed. “Don’t you
see, though? What she has is a terrible curse. It’s much
easier to be a healer, or a black mage. We do the best we can, and, if
we make mistakes, we aren’t faced with the idea that we knew
in advance and still failed.”

   “She doesn’t see
everything.”

   “That’s worse. How
can she tell what might be a wish, or what leads to what she
sees?” Ayrlyn shivered.

   Nylan moistened his lips, and his eyes
flicked toward the top of the tower. The wind rose, and a fluffy white
cloud covered the sun, and Nylan shivered also, but not because of the
darkness or the chill that swept across Tower Black and the causeway
where they stood.

 

 

LXXVI

 

“YOUR SON, LORD Sillek.” The midwife turns
to Sillek, her face blank with the concealed expression of one who felt
Sillek had no rights to be in the room.

   Sillek glances from the small figure in
the midwife’s arms to Zeldyan’s washed-out and
sweat-plastered face, then back to the child and the fuzz upon his
scalp that already bears a blond tinge. He smiles broadly at both his
son and his consort.

   “Have you a name?”
asks the midwife.

   Sillek ignores the question and bends
over the wide bed. His lips brush Zeldyan’s cheek.
“I love you.” His fingers squeeze hers for a
moment. “Thank you. He’s healthy and wonderful. You
are, too.”

   “May I?” asks the
Lady of Lornth, her arms reaching for the infant as Sillek steps back.

   “You?” asks the
midwife.

   “He’s my
son.”

   Sillek’s eyes fasten on the
midwife until she lowers the boy into Zeldyan’s arms.

   Zeldyan eases the seeking mouth into
place and smiles faintly. “His name is Nesslek, after his
father and grandsire.”

   “Nesslek…”
muses Sillek. “You had that thought out all along,
didn’t you?”

   “Of course.”
Zeldyan’s quick grin fades. “I still feel like a
herd of something ran over me.”

   “Would you like a wet nurse
now?” asks the midwife. “Lady
Ellindyja…”

   “No. Thank you. Not
now.” Zeldyan’s arms tighten ever so slightly
around her son.

   Sillek watches both, a smile on his lips
and in his eyes.

 

 

LXXVII

 

TWO HUNDRED CUBITS uphill from Tower Black, still well below
the rocks that rose into the sides of the stable canyon, Nylan looked
at his forge site. Four corners marked with rocks, that was all, not
that there was much he could do until the planting was complete-food
was the first priority.

   With a forge, he might be able to make a
simple plow, if he could bend metal around a wooden frame. He certainly
wouldn’t have the heat to forge metal lander alloys-soften
them, perhaps, and even that would be hard. He’d also need
charcoal, lots of it, and that meant work down in the forest, after it
dried out more.

   He turned toward the greenery below, the
sprigs of grass sprouting even in the field area, and the sprays of
thin white lacy flowers that seemed to have sprung up everywhere.

   Despite the chill that had him in his
worn ship jacket, the engineer took a deep breath of the clean air,
glad to be out of the tower. Then he started up to the stables. His
first job was to fix the road, and he needed the crude cart to lug down
rocks, piles of rocks. As he passed the lander, now used for fodder
storage, he could hear Ayrlyn and the guards as the healer organized
the planting detail.

   “Those are potatoes? Where did
you get these?” demanded Denalle.

   “We grew them. The ones we
saved are known as seed potatoes,” said Ayrlyn, almost
tiredly. “The number of potatoes we saved for seed
wouldn’t have fed anyone for more than an eight-day-and then
what would we have to plant for the next year?”

   “We’re hungry
now.”

   “Shut up, Denalle,”
added Rienadre. “Someone’s got to think ahead. You
think there’s a food market over the next hill? Or a seed
store?”

   “Stuff it! I’m tired
of your superiority. I’m tired of you, and I’m
tired of this whole planet. I just want out. Out! Do you hear
me?”

   “I think the whole Roof of the
World hears you,” added Nylan before the healer could speak.
“The marshal will let you leave anytime. The only question is
whether you want to be beaten, raped, killed, or just be a paid slut
once you reach a town.” He shrugged. “Who knows?
You might find some peasant nice enough to feed you, shelter you, and
give you a dozen kids.”

   Denalle glared at the engineer. Nylan met
her eyes evenly.

   Then she looked down. “I hate
this place.”

   “I don’t think any of
us would have chosen it,” Nylan said quietly. “We
just have to make the best of it. You have any ideas to make it better,
let someone know. We are listening.” He started toward the
cart, then stopped and asked Ayrlyn, “You don’t
mind if I use the cart around here? I’m going to cart
stones.”

   “Stones?” asked
Ayrlyn.

   “I’m going to build a
stone culvert and crude bridge where the outfalls cut through the road.
Unless I fix that, it will just get worse. Then, as I can,
I’ll be using stones to pave the road from the causeway to
the bridge, and then up the ridge. Someday, we won’t have to
worry about the mud, then.”

   “I thought you were going to
work on a forge.”

   “I’ll probably do
both. I can’t use the forge until I make charcoal.
I’d need help with the logs, and that’ll have to
wait until after planting.”

   “That’s a lot of
stones,” said Ayrlyn. “You can have the cart.
It’s not as though we couldn’t come and get it
almost immediately.”

   Nylan grinned and walked toward the
stables.

   “Use the gray,”
Ayrlyn called. “She’s used to the cart.”

   By the time the engineer had the gray
harnessed and the cart ready, the planting detail had left.

   He had tucked his blade and scabbard in
the narrow space beside the seat, so he could get it quickly-Ryba had
insisted he have it near-and flicked the worn leather leads.
“Come on, old lady.”

   His eyes went to the blade. With the
practice that Ryba had also insisted upon, he was improving, but he
still wasn’t comfortable with the blade, even as he found
that he could now usually keep from getting spitted-or the equivalent
with the wooden practice blades-and could actually strike most of the
other guards at will, except for Ryba and Saryn. He could also run
through the exercises with his own blades-finally-without danger of
taking off an ear or other limbs.

   He flicked the leads once more, and the
gray tossed her head vigorously but followed him through the mud toward
the outcroppings farther up the gorge from the stable.

   Rough stones there were, more than
enough, and Nylan slowly filled the cart until it seemed to sag over
the wheels. By then his back felt as if it were sagging as well.

   “Hard labor-they never told me
about this in engineer’s school,” he mumbled to the
gray.

   The mare didn’t answer, but
chewed the few green shoots she could reach from where Nylan had
tethered her. She kept chewing as he untethered her and slowly led her
and the creaking wagon down past the stables, past the smithy site,
past the tower and causeway to the gaping hole in the muddy patch that
passed for a road.

   Then he began to unload the stones, one
after the other, stacking each where he thought it would be closest to
where it would be needed. After the wagon was empty, he flicked the
reins, half dragging the mare from cropping the white flowers and the
tender leaves beneath, and headed back uphill.

   “Nice day, ser,”
called Hryessa from the causeway, where she had taken off her boots and
was knocking the mud from them against the stones of the causeway wall.

   Behind her, in the low-walled practice
area, Llyselle and Siret sparred with wands, their mounts standing by,
since Ryba had decreed that at least two outriders were to be ready at
all times.

   “It is, at last.” He
waved to Hryessa and kept leading the mare uphill.

   For the second load, Nylan concentrated
on finding larger chunks of stone, the kind he could use.to frame a
large culvert. Two long green trunks might help. Ideally, stone alone
would last, but he couldn’t always afford to do the ideal.

   After he finished loading the cart, he
stretched and tried to massage his back. The planting detail was still
struggling with mud and seeds when he returned to the road and began
stacking the stones from his second load.

   He glanced to the tower as the triangle
sounded once. Almost before its echoes died away, Siret and Llyselle
galloped up the hill. The guards in the planting group laid aside
shovels, hoes, and warrens, and reclaimed bows and blades.

   Nylan continued to unload stones until he
heard hoofbeats on the trail down from the ridge. Then he dropped the
last stone and strapped his scabbard in place. Only the two Westwind
mounts returned, but Llyselle and Siret each carried another rider.

   As the two slowed and picked their way
around the gap in the road, and the gray and the cart, Nylan studied
the newcomers-both women, one brown-haired, one black. Then he walked
toward the causeway.

   The silver-haired guards set the two
women on the stones at the end of the causeway. Both staggered as their
feet hit the hard rock.

   Nylan arrived after the armed and curious
guards of the planting detail.

   The black-haired woman, thin-faced,
glanced at Nylan, then at Siret, then at Llyselle, and back at Nylan.

   The engineer glanced around. Ryba was
still in the tower. Saryn was out Hunting, although Nylan suspected she
was as much keeping an eye on Gerlich as hunting. Ayrlyn had been
supervising the crop planting and stood at the back of the now-armed
planting group.

   “I think they’re
asking for shelter, ser,” said Llyselle, “but I
still have problems with the local tongue.”

   “I don’t trust the
dark one,” added Siret.

   Nylan turned his perceptions on the
black-haired woman, wincing as he did. An aura of white chaos, laced
with red, surrounded her.

   “See what I mean,
ser?”

   Nylan grinned at Siret. “Your
night vision is a Jot better than it used to be, isn’t
it?”

   She looked down.

   “Don’t
worry.” He glanced at Llyselle. “Yours is too,
isn’t it?”

   Llyselle looked bewildered. “I
thought most everyone’s was. So I didn’t say
anything. Besides, I hate night duty.”

   Ayrlyn made her way around the half-dozen
guards who had been planting and stepped up beside Nylan. He realized
that, in their muddy and tattered work garb, none of them looked
terribly prepossessing.

   Ryba stepped out of the tower doorway,
dressed in clean leathers, both blades at her waist. Just inside the
door, Nylan could make out Ellysia, Dyliess in one arm, Dephnay in the
other. The marshal surveyed the group, her eyes halting on the two
women.

   Both would-be refugees prostrated
themselves. “Refuge, Angel of Darkness.”

   “You can get up,” she
said wryly in Old Anglorat. “I’m the marshal of
Westwind, not an angel of darkness.” She turned to Nylan and
asked, “Have you talked with them?”

   “No. The brunette seems all
right. The black-haired one is trouble, filled with chaos.”

   “Chaos?”

   “The white stuff that means no
good. It’s like an aura.” Nylan glanced around.
“She’s like a white wizard.”

   Ryba winced, then turned to Ayrlyn.
“You’re the healer. What do you think?”

   “I’d go with the
engineer’s assessment.”

   Ryba looked at the black-haired woman.
“You still carry the evils of men, and of chaos. We will not
harm you. We will not receive you. We will give you food and let you
make your own way.” The black-haired woman swayed, and put a
hand out to hold the causeway wall.

   “She’s
acting,” snapped Ayrlyn.

   “Faker,” added Siret
in a low voice.

   Nylan nodded in agreement.

   “You’re
sure?” Ryba asked Ayrlyn.

   “Yes.”

   “You are bid to
leave,” ordered Ryba. “Now. Walk up to
the-”

   The dark-haired woman turned. Something
glinted in her hand, and she jumped toward the healer.

   Siret’s blade flashed down,
almost in reflex, cutting across the dark-haired woman’s
shoulder and into her chest. Blood splashed, striking the stones of the
causeway almost as fast as the corpse from which it came.

   Nylan staggered at the wave of whiteness
coming from the death. His skull felt as if it might split for an
instant, before the sensation subsided to a dull aching.

   Ayrlyn eased back and quietly retched
into the depression behind the causeway.

   The brown-haired woman flattened herself
on the stones. “Spare me!”

   Denalle stepped forward and kicked back
me dead woman’s hand. Under it was a dagger with a jagged
blade.

   “Nice,” said Ryba
dryly. “What about the other?” Her eyes went to the
groveling brunette.

   “No chaos. We can’t
tell intent,” Nylan said, his eyes darting toward Ayrlyn, who
had finally straightened up. Their eyes crossed, sharing the knowledge
and the chaotic feeling of death.

   “Ayrlyn? Would you and one of
the guards-and the mage”-her eyes focused on
Nylan-“talk with the other one? If she seems all right, have
Hryessa and Istril get her set up. If not, feed her, and send her on
her way with some food, not a lot.”

   Nylan glanced at the marshal, as if to
ask if she had any visions.

   “Not this time.
They’re not always reliable.”

   Although Rienadre looked puzzled at the
exchange, she said nothing. Ayrlyn nodded almost imperceptibly.

   “We’ve all got work
to do. Let’s get on with it.” Ryba turned and went
back into the tower.

   “You may rise,
woman,” Nylan said in Old Anglorat.

   The brunette looked up, her eyes going to
Siret, who remained mounted, cleaning the black blade on a scrap of
cloth, then to the closed tower door.

   Ayrlyn glanced at Denalle.
“Would you and Rienadre bury… don’t make
a big deal of it, out by the bandits, deep enough…”

   “We’ll take care of
it, healer,” answered Rienadre.

   Denalle glanced at Nylan and nodded.

   “The rest of you can get back
to planting. I’ll be there before too long,” said
Ayrlyn. “Siret and Llyselle, and the mage, are enough guard
for one woman.”

   Denalle slipped the jagged blade into her
belt before she and Rienadre lugged off the body.

   The brunette had gathered herself into a
sitting position on the stones as the majority of the guards left. The
entire left side of her face was yellow and green from a recent series
of bruises.

   “Who are you?” began
Ayrlyn.

   “Blynnal…
I’m from Rohrn… I… we heard…
there was a place…” Tears began to stream down her
cheeks. “But… women…
don’t… kill…”

   “Why not?” asked
Ayrlyn. “Men do. Women have strong arms, too.”

   “But…”

   “Child…”
said Ayrlyn softly. “If we are attacked, we defend ourselves.
Is that wrong?”

   “Jrenya, she was strong. She
said no man would ever force her, and you killed her.”

   “Why did you and Jrenya come
here?” asked Nylan.

   Blynnal’s eyes dropped to the
stones, to the patch of blood that marked where Jrenya had fallen.

   Ayrlyn and Nylan waited. So did Siret and
Llyselle. Llyselle’s mount whuffed, and the guard patted its
neck.

   “Dyemeni, he was my consort, he
beat me after Kyel died… he kept beating
me…” More tears rolled down Blynnal’s
face. “Jrenya said it was wrong. She said we needed to do
something. When… the snows melted… Dyemeni, he
took out his big leather belt… he did…
things…”

   “What about Jrenya?”
asked Nylan, ignoring the faint glare from Ayrlyn. “Why did
she come with you?”

   “She… she said,
Nortya was mean…”

   “Did Nortya beat
her?” asked Nylan. “Did Jrenya have bruises like
yours?”

   “No… but…
he was mean.”

   “How was he mean?”
pressed Nylan. “Did you see him hurt her?”

   “No… but she hated
him… she said… her father made her join
him… because he was the factor’s only
son.”

   “So… you left Rohrn
because your consort beat you?”

   Blynnal nodded.

   “Did Jrenya kill
Dyemeni?” asked Nylan.

   Ayrlyn’s eyes widened, as did
Siret’s.

   Blynnal looked down at the stones.

   “Did she?”

   “I… don’t
know… She stabbed him, and we ran. We meant to leave anyway,
but he came home early, and he saw the packs, and he hit me. He
didn’t see her.”

   “What about her
consort?”

   Again the brunette looked down at the
stones.

   “She killed him, too, I
suppose?”

   The faintest of nods answered Nylan.

   He looked at Ayrlyn. “I
don’t know. She’s weak-probably because everyone
beat her up. She doesn’t seem evil or chaotic… but
two murders?”

   “The dead one did
both,” pointed out Siret.

   “I… was
glad…” admitted Blynnal.
“Dyemeni… hurt me… so
much…”

   “Honesty helps,”
Nylan offered.

   The brunette sat on the dust and mud of
the causeway stones in her tattered trousers and tunic.

   Ayrlyn glanced from the green and purple
side of Blynnal’s face to the two mounted guards.
“What do you two think? She’ll be sharing your
quarters.”

   “Her problem seems to be men,
and we sure don’t have too many around here, especially since
the weasel left,” said Llyselle.

   “The weasel?” Nylan
said inadvertently.

   “Narliat.”

   Ayrlyn looked at Siret.

   “I’d say to give her
a chance. First mistake, and she’s gone.”

   The healer looked to Nylan.

   “That’s my
reaction… but I’m a man.”

   As the conversation proceeded, Blynnal
had turned from one face to the next, eyes puzzled, almost like a
trapped hare.

   “I think we agree,”
said Ayrlyn, “and none of us are exactly happy about
it.” She turned to Blynnal and switched to Old Anglorat.
“We are not happy with how you came…”

   Tears oozed from the local
woman’s eyes.

   “… but…
you will have a chance to prove yourself.”

   Blynnal threw her arms around
Ayrlyn’s legs. “Thank you, great lady. Thank you! I
will be good. I will cook. I will scrub, but do not send me
away.”

   “You may cook or scrub-we all
do. Even the mage digs and lifts rocks. But once you prove yourself, we
will also teach you the blade.”

   Blynnal’s eyes widened.
“I had not thought…”

   “You will learn when to use
it-and when not to. Both are important.” Ayrlyn glanced at
Nylan. “I just hope…”

   “So do I.”

   “She’ll be all
right,” said Siret softly. “She’s just a
scared little rabbit who got with the wrong people. That other one,
though…”

   “Very bad person.”
Llyselle shook her head. “Very bad.”

   “Anything else?”
asked the healer, looking toward the tower.

   “Before you go… I
had a question,” said Nylan. “Could I get two green
trunks, around a half cubit thick, for the bridge?”

   Ayrlyn looked over his shoulder at the
stones stacked around the gorge through the road.
“I’ll talk to you about that after I get Blynnal
organized with Istril. But I think we can manage that-if it
doesn’t rain.” She gave Nylan a brief smile and
touched Blynnal on the shoulder. “You need to wash, and to
have your hair cut and to get clean garments…”

   As Ayrlyn and her charge left, Llyselle
looked to the sky. “It won’t rain. I can
tell.”

   Nylan wondered what else the
silver-haired guard could tell. He looked back at the cart and the
stones. Then he took a deep breath and started back toward the unbuilt
bridge, trying to ignore the thoughts of the unbuilt smithy.

 

 

LXXVIII

 

THRAP!

   Hissl glances up from the table to the
half-open door to the outside landing, half-open to allow in the spring
breeze.

   “Yes?”

   “I seek the great wizard
Hissl,” comes the voice from beyond the door.

   Hissl rises and picks up the white bronze
dagger from the table as he steps toward the door. “And why
might you seek him?”

   The door swings open, but the hooded
figure standing there does not enter the room.

   “I’m not exactly
interested in cutthroats sneaking around with their faces
hidden.” Hissl’s tone is faintly ironic.

   “I am not a cutthroat, and I
offer you the key to your wishes, honored Wizard,” begins the
hooded figure.

   “My wishes? How would you
presume to know my wishes?” asks Hissl.

   “An unnamed brethren of yours
presumes, not I.” The hooded figure extends an
object… very slowly.

   Hissl reaches, then draws back his hand.
“Iron! That is no token of friendship!” His fingers
tighten around the dagger.

   “Look again, I was told to tell
you.”

   Hissl’s eyes narrow, but he
studies the object on the other’s palm. “Chaos,
bound in iron, and yet, the chaos binds the iron. How can that
be?”

   The hooded man steps forward and sets the
object on the white oak table. “I will leave that for you,
and for you to consider.” He turns and walks down the narrow
steps from the upper room.

   Behind him, Hissl studies the iron and
the chaos which surrounds it. “But how? How?”

   He finally glances out into the
afternoon, but the hooded figure has vanished into the streets of
Clynya, and the spring wind bears no hint of the stranger or his origin.

 

 

LXXIX

 

THIS TIME, AT the low cries, and the sense of pain, Nylan had
not waited, but followed Ayrlyn up to the third level, and to Istril.

   “It’ll be all
right,” insisted the silver-haired guard. “It will
be. I know.” Her breathing increased, and lines of pain
creased her face. “But I feel better with both of you
here.”

   “You know a lot,”
said Ayrlyn. “More than I do.”

   “What about me?” said
Jaseen.

   “You…
too…” puffed Istril.

   “Don’t push
yet,” cautioned the healer. “You’re not
ready.”

   “Feels that
way…” grunted the silver-haired guard.
“Want to push… whole body says I should.”

   “Don’t…
not yet… pant… puff, but don’t
push.”

   Nylan stood beside the bed that had been
a lander couch, waiting, hoping he would not be needed, feeling, again,
almost like an intruder, for all that he had promised Istril that he
and Ayrlyn would be there.

   In the end, besides providing order
support, and a touch of healing, he was not needed, and Istril cuddled
her son in her arms, and dampness streaked her cheeks.

   “What are you going to call
him?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “Weryl.”

   Nylan paused. “Weryl? That was
my grandfather’s name, too.”

   “I know. I liked the
name.” Istril’s hand stroked the boy’s
cheek. “So small.” Her eyes closed momentarily.
“Tired… worse than riding all day…
hurts a lot more, too.”

   “You’ll heal
fine,” Ayrlyn assured her.

   “Just let me finish getting you
cleaned up,” muttered Jaseen, adding to Ayrlyn,
“That’s about the last of that
antiseptic.”

   “We’re going to have
to develop some local substitutes- something.”

   Nylan stepped back away from the couch,
then stopped and looked at the boy, another child with the silver fuzz
on his scalp, foreshadowing silver hair like his mother’s.
Istril’s eyes closed again, and her breathing smoothed, but
she opened them and looked at Nylan.

   “Glad… you keep
promises…”

   Although he felt awkward, Nylan stepped
forward and touched her wrist. “You just rest and take care
of your son.”

   “He… I
will,” answered Istril, seemingly fighting both pain and
exhaustion.

   “Just rest,” added
Ayrlyn.

   Nylan took a last look at the two and
then walked to the steps and down toward the now-empty great room.
Ayrlyn followed.

   The engineer looked at the empty tables,
then walked to the one window that was open. He stood there, in the
cool wind that carried the smell of turned earth, spring flowers, and
damp pine needles into the tower.

  
“Sometimes…” For a time, he did not
finish the sentence.

   “Sometimes, I feel like
there’s so much I should see, like the children.”

   “Both Istril and Siret had
silver-headed children,” said Ayrlyn.
“That’s more than a little strange, since Gerlich
is dark-haired.”

   “Does Relyn have anyone in his
family with silver hair?” asked Nylan.

   “I don’t know, but I
got the impression that no one has seen anyone with silver hair like
the four of you anywhere on this planet.”

   “Maybe it’s
dominant?” Nylan shook his head.

   “That’s asking a
lot,” said Ayrlyn. “Our hair colors get changed
from this switch from universe to universe. That I can buy, in a weird
sort of way. But changing a recessive into a dominant gene? I
don’t know about that.” She pauses. “Are
you sure you don’t know more about this?”

   “I’ve only slept with
one person.”

   “You’re telling the
truth, and that bothers me. Because…”

   “I know,” Nylan
sighed. “Kyalynn, Dyliess, and Weryl all feel the same, with
our senses… don’t they?”

   Ayrlyn nodded.

   “I need to talk to
Ryba.”

   “I’ll be
here,” Ayrlyn said. “Remember that. I’ll
be here.”

   Nylan looked at the redhead, but she just
repeated her words. “I’ll be here, if you need to
talk.”

   “Thank you.” He took
a deep breath and headed for the steps.

   Ryba was easing Dyliess into the cradle.
So Nylan waited for a time until his daughter half snorted and slipped
into sleep to the gentle rocking of the cradle. Already, she seemed
larger.

   “How is Istril?”
asked Ryba, her tone that of professional concern, even before Nylan
could speak.

   “She’s fine.
So’s her son.” Nylan watched Ryba.

   A faint shadow crossed the
marshal’s face. “She had a son?”

   “She named him Weryl.”

   “How touching.”

   Nylan swallowed. “Dyliess
isn’t the only one, is she? How did you do it?”

   “How does it feel? i promised
you a son. I didn’t realize it would be this soon.”

   “I don’t like it-but
how did you manage it? You’re the only one… I
mean, I’m not like Gerlich, bedding every willing
marine.”

   Ryba turned toward the window, walking
past the cradle, where Dyliess gave a little snort. Ryba paused and
smiled briefly at the infant before speaking. “You
don’t have to bed anyone but me. We do have some remnants of
medical technology. And I know how to use the local net, or whatever
you want to call it, also, at least enough to ensure that our child
would be a daughter.” Ryba looked back at the silver-haired
girl in the cradle. “I thought that Istril’s child
would be a girl.”

   Nylan decided against mentioning
Istril’s slow-emerging abilities. He walked to the other
tower window, and looked out past the folded-back shutters.
“Why?”

   “Isn’t it
obvious?” Ryba brushed the short dark hair out of her face.
“We’re stuck here. We need to prepare for the next
generation. Interbreeding with the locals runs risks we don’t
even know about. With Merlin’s death, you and Gerlich are the
only ones with verifiably compatible genes. You’re hung up on
being with one person… which is…
reassuring… for me, but not terribly effective. This way we
can assure staggered pregnancies. Besides, we don’t have many
men. Look what happened to Mertin. At least now we’ve saved
your genes.”

   “And so many girls?”

   “I’m not about to let
male brute force undo what we’ve built. There will be a few
more sons, though.”

   “Stud value,” said
Nylan bitterly.

   “Eventually, we’ll
have to bring in locals, but not until we’ve widened the gene
pool enough, and until the girls are socialized the right
way.”

   “The feminine Utopia.”

   “You’ve seen this
planet. Boys are more fragile than girls; so more boys are born in
times of stress. Put those together, and natural selection would have
all our daughters barefoot and pregnant in fifteen years. Twenty at the
outside. No, thank you.”

   Nylan could see dark gray clouds massing
on the northern horizon, just above the western peaks. “You
could have told me, rather than let me guess.”

   “I couldn’t risk
it.” Ryba looked down at the floor, then to the cradle.
“It’s not you. You’re basically a gentle
man… but… I know what works, and
there’s too much at stake. Do I tell you, when I know that
I’ll have a bright and talented daughter if I
don’t? Or that… I don’t dare tell you
that, either.” She shook her head helplessly. “I
know just enough.”

   “You’re a captive of
your visions. Life isn’t just following what you know will
work. Can’t you dare to make it better?”

   “I have,” answered
Ryba bleakly. “That’s why three guards are dead. I
saw myself being more brutal than in dealing with Mran, and I
wouldn’t do it. I wasn’t quite that bad after
Frelita died, but I should have been, because more guards died being
careless, because people only respect force. You don’t think
I’ve tried? Or that it doesn’t bother me?”

   “It doesn’t bother
you enough.”

   “It bothers me a lot! I
suggest, and, unless I’ve got a hand on a blade and madness
in my eyes, half of them won’t listen. You think I enjoy
that?”

   “But you do
it…”

   “You don’t see how
much it upsets me, and you never will, and that’s just
another reason why I don’t ever want many men around. And
you’re one of the best. Most of them are like Gerlich or that
weasel Narliat.”

   Nylan shook his head.
“I’m not them.”

   “No, you’re not. What
would you have me do? Don’t give me generalities, either.
What action do you want?”

   “Don’t turn me into a
stud through artificial insemination.”

   “Fine. Will you promise me to
bed three more guards- of my choice-late this summer?”

   “I’m not like
Gerlich.”

   “No. But we need children if
Westwind is to survive. And if Westwind doesn’t survive, most
women on this planet won’t have a life worth
living.”

   “You need a purpose,
don’t you?” asked Nylan. “You have to
have something that makes it all worthwhile.”

   “It took you this long to
figure that out?” Ryba gave a harsh bark, not quite a laugh,
and Dyliess murmured and turned on the coarse sheet. The marshal bent
down and rocked the cradle. “I’m not satisfied with
mere survival, and you aren’t either, Nylan. You just
won’t admit it. You’ll nearly kill yourself to
build a tower that will last for centuries, but you won’t
admit it. You’ll risk ridicule for being obsessed with
building, but you won’t admit you need a larger purpose,
too.” The marshal paused, then added, “You still
didn’t answer my question. You asked me to do something, and
I said I would-if you’d give me an alternative.”

   “I don’t
know.” Nylan looked down at Dyliess.

   “I always thought men liked the
idea of harems.” Ryba shrugged. “Or we can keep on
the way we are. It’s a little messy,
but…”

   “I’m not Gerlich, and
I need to think about it.” With a last look at Dyliess, Nylan
turned and walked down the steps- out through the big south door and
out into the shadows that were falling from the cold north across the
Roof of the World. His feet carried him to the smithy site, and the
rocks and the mortar. At least what he built was solid. At least he
could see what happened with mortar and stone and timber.

   He needed to talk with Ayrlyn. He needed
that, but not yet. Not yet.

 

 

LXXX

 

“THAT’S IT.” NYLAN tapped the
last wedge into place, ensuring that the fourth fir trunk would remain
in place over the stone culvert. Ryba had declared that food and
planting came first. So he’d done the bridge and culvert
backward, putting the heavy rock riprap in place on both uphill and
downhill sides of the culvert first, doing everything he could do alone
until Saryn and the others could fell and bring him the trunks he
needed.

   “Last year, this was just
bushes and grass,” said Huldran, setting down a heavy stone
just beyond the footings that held the bridge timbers. She looked down
at the stone-lined channel. “Do you think we need this big a
bridge?”

   “I hope it’s big
enough,” the engineer answered. He gestured toward the tower
and the bathhouse behind it. “We’re changing the
land, and the guard will keep expanding- according to the marshal. The
more hard roads and buildings, the more runoff. This is to keep it
channeled from the fields.”

   “What if there’s no
rain?” grunted Cessya, mixing water into the dry ingredients
of the mortar.

   “That’s next
year’s project,” laughed Nylan, slightly nervously.
“See that swale down there? If we dam it at the north end,
then we can put a spillway, a little one, in the middle, and run a
ditch from the south end down to the fields.”

   “The Rats’d have your
head, Engineer, for all this land-changing,” Huldran
commented.

   “They’d do the same
if they were trying to survive here.”

   “They like hotter
places.”

   “They can have
‘em,” snapped Cessya. “Mortar’s
ready.”

   The three lugged the battered and leaking
mortar tub up to the flat spot beyond the end of the timbers. Huldran
and Nylan began to fill the spaces between the heavy rocks, the wedges,
and the timbers.

   Once the mortar dried and held the
trunks, then Nylan could complete the bridge’s roadbed, not
so wide as he would have liked, but wide enough for a good-sized wagon
and a wall on each side.

   As he paused before taking another trowel
of mortar, he took in the short stretch of paving stones that extended
from the west end of the unfinished structure toward the causeway
before the tower. Westwind was looking more and more permanent.

   Nylan eased the mortar into place, while
Huldran took the cart back up beyond the tower and to the base of the
rocky hills to bring back more stones for both the bridge roadbed and
for fill.

   In the low-walled flat beyond the
causeway, blade practice had begun again. Ryba had handed the
carry-pack with Dyliess in it to Selitra. Facing her was Blynnal, and
the local woman cowered once she held the wooden wand.

   Saryn stood beside Blynnal, correcting
her.

   Behind Saryn, Hryessa and Murkassa
practiced, already, from what Nylan could tell, making good progress
toward achieving Ryba’s standards for all the guards, whether
originally angel marines or local refugees.

   The engineer pursed his lips as he bent
for more mortar. Results-Ryba got them. He just wasn’t fond
of the tactics.

   “Working hard again, I
see.”

   Nylan glanced up to see Ayrlyn standing
there. “What else do obsessed engineers do?”

   “I’m leaving tomorrow
morning…” The redhead let her words trail off.

   “All right.” This
time, Nylan understood. “Can I finish up this batch of
mortar?”

   She nodded.

   The engineer turned to Cessya.
“I’ll finish here. Would you go find Huldran and
tell her just to unload the stones and then take the cart back. I need
to talk to Ayrlyn about what we need from her next trading
trip.”

   “Yes, ser.” Cessya
grinned. “Walking’s easier than moving
stones.”

   “We’ll make up for it
after the noon meal,” Nylan promised, returning her grin,
then looking back down at the stone in front of him.

   “I’m still looking
for an anvil?” Ayrlyn asked as Cessya started uphill, toward
the tower and the rock-strewn canyon beyond the stable canyon.

   “We need spikes, and nails,
almost any kind of hardware. A set of hammers, I’d guess, big
ones for the forge.” Nylan troweled the mortar smooth in the
joints between two stones. “And some circular saw blades for
the sawmill.”

   “We don’t have
one,” the redhead pointed out with a smile. “We
don’t have a forge, either.”

   “We’ll have both,
before the end of the year.” The smith extended the trowel
for more mortar.

   “Nylan… why do you
drive yourself so hard?”

   “Because… what else
can I do? Ryba wants to change this world to one where women rule, and
she’ll leave the ground soaked with blood, including mine, if
I try to stop her. Besides, she’s right about the way women
are treated, and you can’t change that without even greater
force.” He paused and wiped his forehead with the back of his
forearm.

   “Building things
won’t change that,” Ayrlyn reflected.
“You’re just allowing her to do more.”

   “What am I supposed to do?
I’ve got three children, and I only knew about one of them
until they were born. Am I just going to condemn them to a short and
nasty life? If they have strong walls and warmth and clean water, that
leaves them less at the mercy of this friggin‘ world. I
don’t like it, but Ryba’s the only ship in
port.”

   “What do you want?”

   The smith finished the joint, and
extended the trowel to the battered tub for more mortar. “I
don’t know. I know what I don’t want. I
don’t want killing after killing. I don’t want to
be cold and dirty and hungry. I don’t want that for Dyliess
or Weryl or Kyalynn.” He shrugged, then applied the trowel
again.

   “You want to be appreciated,
but you don’t want to force people to appreciate you. You
want to be loved, but not used.”

   “You might say that,”
he admitted. “But that’s true of most people.
Don’t you feel that way?”

   “Yes”-Ayrlyn smiled
warmly-“but I thought we were talking about you. You feel
responsible for all your children, and yet you feel used. And you
won’t say anything about it. You don’t like to talk
about your feelings, not directly, and you try to avoid it. Was it that
way growing up?”

   “My mother always said there
was no use in complaining. No one cared, and we might as well save our
breath. So Karista and I didn’t. The older I got, the truer
it seemed.” He set down the trowel as he finished the last of
the mixed mortar. “What about you?”

   “There you go again. Two
sentences about you, and switch the subject to me.” Ayrlyn
laughed. “My father was the warm one, and he joked a lot. He
was quiet about it, but he also made it known, like your mother, that
outside the family, no matter what people said, most didn’t
care.”

   “It sounds like he
cared.”

   “Your mother didn’t?
I’m sure she did.”

   “Oh, she did,” Nylan
admitted, “but she felt it should be obvious, and why belabor
the obvious? Actions speak louder than words-that was her
maxim.”

   “So you keep trying to make
your actions do the speaking?” The redhead shook her head.
“Most people don’t read actions very well. They
need words as well, lots of them, preferably words that say how
wonderful they are.”

   “You’re more cynical
than I am.”

   “You’re not cynical
at all, Nylan.” Ayrlyn reached down and touched his arm
gently, her fingers warm and cool at the same time.
“You’re a caring man who’s never allowed
himself to express what he feels. You feel guilty and self-indulgent
when you even think about what you feel. So you keep doing things and
hope people understand.”

   “Probably.” Ayrlyn
snorted and squeezed his arm.

   “What about you? After last
fall, aren’t there going to be armsmen out there looking for
a trader with flame-red hair?”

   “It’s getting cut
shorter, and I’ll be wearing a hat. If they notice, well, it
takes time to send messages in this culture, and we’ll try to
stay ahead of Lord Sillek’s authorities.”

   “I’m not sure I like
that.”

   “What else can I do? We need
the goods, and now is better than later.”

   The engineer nodded reluctantly, then
stood as the bell rang for the midday meal.

   “Time to eat? You headed my
way?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “Is there any other
way?” Nylan swallowed. “Don’t answer
that.”

   “I won’t, but
I’ll remember that you asked it.” She smiled
gently, and Nylan smiled back.

 

 

LXXXI

 

ZELDYAN SITS, PROPPED on the edge of the bed, Nesslek at her
breast, wearing a green silksheen dressing gown that sets off her
golden hair.

   “He’s mostly
good,” she says, looking down and smiling.

   “Except when he cries in the
middle of the night.” Sillek rubs his eyes and yawns, then
walks to the window of the room. The fields beyond Lornth, those he can
see, have turned green, the light green of crops recently sprouted,
with a hint of brown underlying the green. “Some night- just
a night-couldn’t he stay with a nurse?”

   “When he’s older, but
he’s not even a season yet,” points out Zeldyan.
“Would you want to trust the heir of Lornth out of our sight
so young?” She offers an open smile.

   “I may not survive another
season.” Sillek laughs. “Undertaking this campaign
may get me more sleep than staying in my own bed.”

   “I’m glad
it’s only sleep you’re wishing.” He turns
from the window and steps to the bed, bending and brushing her cheek
with his lips. “It’s not all I’m wishing,
but I want you well.”

   Zeldyan flushes, ever so slightly. Then
she frowns. “I still worry about your being so far from
Lornth.”

   “Whatever I do, it will be far
from Lornth. I have two enemies trying to bleed us dry, and another one
that my own holders won’t let me forget. Or my
mother.”

   “Has she done anything beyond
talking to Lygon?” asks Zeldyan.

   Sillek frowns faintly, then turns to the
window. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean…”

   “That’s all
right.” Sillek strokes his black beard without turning.
“Lord Megarth approached me. So did Lord Fysor. They were old
friends of my sire.” He shrugs and turns, his eyes bleak.
“What can I do?”

   “I’m
sorry,” Zeldyan repeats. “So am I.”

   “It all seems so
stupid.” Zeldyan lifts her free left hand to stop his
objection. “I know. I know. You’ve explained, and
so has your mother, and so did my father when he disowned Relyn, but
it’s still stupid.”

   “Has anyone heard from
Relyn?”

   “No. Father thinks the angel
women have kept him captive. Have your wizards seen him?”

   “No. That doesn’t
mean much, though. They can’t scree inside that black stone
tower, and during the winter how could anyone tell one person from
another in those heavy coats and scarves?” Sillek sits in the
chair beside the bed and yawns. His hand strokes her cheek for a moment.

   Nesslek gurgles, makes a soft sneezing
sound, and returns to nursing.

   “You just get to eat and sleep
and be close to your mother,” says Sillek to his son.
“And keep me awake.” He stands.

   Zeldyan reaches out and touches his hand.
He wraps his fingers around hers for a moment, and then their fingers
part.

 

 

LXXXII

 

RIENADRE GESTURED TOWARD the brick forms stacked in rows on
the crude trestles. “It’ll be another few days
before these are ready.”

   “We do what we can.”
Nylan needed more of the bricks so that he could finish the smithy and
the forge.

   “That we do.”
Rienadre picked up the axe.

   Nylan flicked the leads, and the gray
mare whuffled. The cart creaked as it rocked forward under the load of
building bricks. A heavy gust of wind whipped through Nylan’s
hair, then dropped away. Overhead, high cumulus clouds dotted the sky,
some showing dark centers, for all that it was only slightly before
midday. The gray whuffled again, and the cart creaked, and Nylan walked
beside, along the rutted trail that was not quite a road.

   Whufff…

   “I know. It’s no fun
carting bricks uphill. Well… it’s no fun walking
alongside you, either.”

   The cart-the one Saryn and Ayrlyn had
built, not the one that they’d obtained from Skiodra and
repaired-creaked again. The other was with Ayrlyn, and Nylan wondered
if she would be able to obtain saw blades on her trading run. Then he,
in his copious spare time and with his great ignorance of low
technology, would attempt to build a sawmill.

   He snorted. The healer had perhaps four
golds, and several blades. What were they going to do to get through
the early summer? He swallowed, thinking about her flame-red hair and
the anger Westwind was generating.

   A flash of yellow-banded black wings
crossed the trail, and the yellow and black bird alighted on the end of
a dead pine branch and cocked its head in an almost inquiring attitude
at Nylan.

   “Hello there,” said
the would-be smith.

   Twirrrppp…
twirrrppp…

   The cart creakked once more, and the bird
responded to that as well.

   “I think you like
noise.”

   At that comment, the wings spread, and
the bird departed.

   Ahead, Nylan heard voices, and saws, and
the regular thump-chop of an axe. Fierral and the timber crew were at
it, and before long, he’d have to come down and turn the
piles of limbs, the crooked ones, the stumps, and the other sections
unsuited to timber, into charcoal. The idea was simple enough, a
controlled burn under low-oxygen conditions. That meant burying most of
the wood, probably in a long pile and lighting one end. How many times
would he have to try it before he got it right?

   He flicked the reins again.

   Before long, the cart crossed another low
rise in the trail. To the right, downhill, was a clearing filled with
stumps. At the east end was a pile of limbs, odd pieces of trees,
flanked by a tall brush pile. Along the traillike road were two low
piles, one of squarish timbers and one of planks.

   From a pole fastened between two smaller
pines and fashioned from a roughly smoothed and stripped fir limb hung
four gutted hares.

   Nylan’s eyebrows rose, and he
slowed to examine the game.

   “Hryessa,” explained
Fierral, walking up. “She made some snares. Can you take
those up to Blynnal and Kadran?”

   “Where’s
Kyseen?”

   “Working with us. There was a
general consensus that she’s better with a blade and an axe
or saw than in the kitchen, and I really doubt that Blynnal will ever
be much with a blade. Hryessa and Murkassa-they’ll be good,
but not poor Blynnal. On the other hand-”

   Both turned at the sound of hoofs.

   “Weapons! Blades and
bows!” Fierral’s blue eyes turned cold, cold as the
ice on Freyja.

   A black-haired woman clung to what seemed
to be the plow-harness or horse collar of a big brown beast that
lumbered down the slope toward the guards. Before her on the horse was
a small, dark-haired child. With each step, they bounced, and Nylan
winced.

   Hryessa arrived almost instantly, and
Berlis wasn’t that far behind. Weindre stood by one end of
the pole with the hares on it, her bow in hand.

   The woman pulled at the leads, and the
plow horse slowed.

   Fierral glanced uphill, then stepped
forward and caught the leads up short, just beyond the harness. Foam
streaked the gelding’s muzzle.

   The dark-haired woman straightened on the
horse’s back, holding her head higher, her arm around the
girl who sat before her. Their brown tunics had recently been cleaned,
but both riders were mottled with dust, and muddy patches appeared on
the mother’s cheeks.

   “Are you…
the… mountain women?” asked the woman in a hoarse
voice.

   “We live here,”
answered Fierral in accented Old Anglo-rat.

   “I would like to claim refuge.
For my daughter and me.”

   Fierral looked at Nylan. “What
can you tell?”

   Nylan took a breath and tried to let his
feelings, through what he still conceived of as the local magic net,
sense the woman. After a moment, he turned to Fierral. “None
of that white stuff, that chaos that’s almost like evil.
She’s tired, almost ready to collapse, probably ridden that
beast a long way. All that doesn’t mean she’s good,
though. The child’s hungry,” he added as an
afterthought.

   “It’s a
start,” pointed out Fierral, who looked back at the exhausted
riders. “We will not send you away, but the marshal
must-”

   “Decide,” finished
Nylan.

   “Please… help.
Surba… he follows, and Pretar is with him.” With a
convulsive gesture, the woman half climbed, half fell, off the horse.
Her bare feet hit the ground hard, and she turned and lifted her
daughter down.

   Nylan shuddered. His feet would have hurt
from hitting the rocky ground that hard, but the woman seemed unfazed
by that. Instead she looked back uphill. The child looked boldly at
Nylan, and he smiled back. She remained solemnly wide-eyed, her head
reaching not quite to his chest.

   “Hryessa-take your mount and
get the marshal-and some reinforcements. Let the marshal decide, but
tell her we have a refugee and a couple of incoming
troublemakers.”

   “Incoming?” asked the
locally raised guard as she mounted.

   “Bad men who are on their way
here,” Fierral rephrased. Berlis offered a brief grin at the
rewording. Hryessa urged her mount uphill.

   “Who might you be?”
Nylan asked. “Nistayna. I rode all the way from
Linspros.” Her eyes darted back uphill, her hands remaining
on the girl’s shoulders.

   “Stand by for
company!” ordered Fierral. “Berlis-you get over
there on the other side where you’ve got a clear
shot.” The guard eased her way across the trail.
“And Linspros is where?” asked Nylan. Her eyes
widened. “Is it true that you fell from the skies?”

   “Yes, in a way,”
answered Nylan tiredly. “Now… where is
Linspros?” He added to Fierral, “I’d like
to know where else we’re going to be making
enemies.”

   The chief guard, or armsmaster or
armsmistress-she had to be something like that in this culture now,
Nylan reflected-responded with a grim smile, then motioned to Weindre.
“They need something to drink.”

  
“Linspros…” Nistayna mumbled. Nylan
walked to the nearest stump, leading the cart horse, and tied the leads
to a protruding root. Then he turned and extended a hand to the
apparently tottering woman. Nistayna shied away, her arms shielding the
girl. “Fine.” He motioned to Weindre, who
approached with a plastic water bottle, one of the few remaining.
“You get them to sit down before they both fall
over.”

   Fierral tied the plow horse to another
tree, and glanced back uphill. Hryessa was already nearly to the top of
the ridge and almost out of sight.

   After the black-haired local slumped onto
the stump, she took the bottle and offered it to the girl. After the
child drank, and after the mother took several swallows of water, Nylan
tried again. “We are strangers. Where is Linspros? Is it near
Gnotos?”

   “Oh, no. Linspros is between
Analeria and Gallos in the great west valley.”

   “It’s east of the
mountains. How long did it take you to find us?”

   “Days… many days,
and yesterday… I saw Surba. I was on the heights, but he has
Pretar. He is a hunter and a tracker. They will be here soon. We could
not ride as fast as they can.” Again, she looked to the east.

   “This refugee bit always
disrupts work,” said Fierral dryly.

   “We’ve gotten a good
cook, a good rabbit hunter, and some blades.”

   “We’ll need a lot
more, the way things are going.”

   “Why did you leave
Linspros?” asked Nylan.

   “Surba… only a woman
would know. Only a mother.” Her eyes fell.

   “Sexual abuse?” Nylan
asked the redheaded head of the guards.

   “Probably, but who knows? Any
kind of abuse seems to be fair on this friggin‘ planet. Maybe
the girl.”

   Nylan bridled inside, but only said,
“That’s not representative. We only see the ones
who are abused. The happy ones, or those from places where the women
have some power, won’t be the ones seeking out the
angels.”

   Fierral opened her mouth, then paused.
“You could be right.”

   “Maybe what this shows is that
the society doesn’t offer a place for those that
don’t fit in, but it doesn’t mean every woman is
degraded or oppressed.”

   “No,” said Fierral.
“Just those who want to be treated equally.”

   “Maybe,” said Nylan.
“Maybe not. Do we know enough?”

   They looked back at Nistayna. She, in
turn, kept her eyes on the ground, but clutched the plastic water
bottle, then offered it to her daughter again. The child drank, but
kept her eyes on Nylan.

   For a time, they all waited. How long,
Nylan wasn’t certain. Then he frowned. Did he hear hooves?
Ryba?

   “Ready!” snapped
Fierral.

   Across the trail road, Berlis checked her
bow.

   Weindre checked her bow and held an
arrow, almost ready to nock it.

   Behind Fierral, Llyselle appeared, also
carrying her composite bow, flanked by Kyseen, the former cook, who
grinned shyly at Nylan.

   Ryba rode down the trail, and the guards
lowered their bows.

   “Don’t relax too
much,” said the marshal as she and Hryessa rode up together.
“Your incomings are headed this way.”

   “Will they go up to the
tower?” asked Nylan. “They might, but they
won’t get far. Everyone else, except Ellysia and Blynnal, is
waiting on the top of the ridge. And Gerlich, of course-he’s
out hunting.”

   Ryba surveyed the area. “If we
have to go to weapons, use the bows first. I don’t want any
of us hurt if we can avoid it.” Then she eased the big roan
up next to the stump where the dark-haired Nistayna now stood.
“You are the Angel?”

   “I’m Ryba, the
marshal of Westwind.” Nistayna bowed her head.
“Please… save us… take us in. Do not
make me return. If you must, I will leave, but please take Niera. She
must not…”

   Nylan’s lips tightened. He
didn’t like Surba, and the man hadn’t even
appeared. Ryba glanced to Nylan. “No chaos. Seems
honest.”

   “So long as you live by our
rules, you may stay.” Ryba paused, and then added,
“Westwind is not always an easy place, and we already have
powerful enemies-” She broke off at the sound of hooves.

   Two riders eased their way down the
slope. On the lead horse, a black stallion, rode a burly man dressed in
a green shirt and tunic and brown leather trousers. Behind him rode a
thin-faced blond man with a large bow across his back.

   The thin man started to reach for the bow.

   “I would not touch that bow,
not if you wish to live,” said Ryba, her voice carrying
across the suddenly silent trail and woods.

   The burly man reined in the black
stallion, a trace of foam at the edge of his mouth, and skittering at
his rider’s rough handling.

   “Nistayna’s my woman,
and no mountain women are going to take her away. You keep her, and
I’ll have every man in Linspros here to tear down your fancy
tower. Yes, we’ve heard about your tower, and no
tower’s going to stop us.”

   “That would mean a lot of
graves,” pointed out Ryba.

   Nistayna shivered, but stood straight.

   “I want my woman back.
Now.”

   “You don’t own
her.” Without taking her eyes off Surba, Ryba asked,
“Do you wish to return with him?”

   “No. I would die
first.” The words were soft, but firm. “We both
would.”

   Ryba’s lips curled.
“They do not like you much.”

   “They are mine, and they will
return with me.”

   “I think not.”

   Surba looked at the four bows trained on
him. Then he looked at Nylan, who had drawn his blade, but not lifted
it. His eyes darted to the blond man, who shook his head. Finally, he
answered Ryba, “There are a lot more of you than us, but
we’ll be back, and we’ll tear that tower down stone
by stone.”

   “I see,” said Ryba.
“So you and your friend just rode after this woman, and
I’ll bet you didn’t even bother to tell anyone
where you were going. You just thought you’d ride her down
and beat her and take her back. Is that it?”

   “Real men don’t have
to tell anyone where they’re going.” He shrugged.
“All of Linspros knows me. No one walks on Surba.”

   “I wouldn’t think of
it,” murmured Ryba. She nodded at Berlis, then slowly took
out her throwing blade. She rode forward slowly, stopping a dozen paces
away from the stallion. “Do you know what this is?”

   “It’s a toy
blade.”

   Ryba smiled, and the blade flashed from
her hand.

   The burly man slumped over the saddle,
tried to straighten up, and finally did. “Bitch…
dirty… bitch.” The stallion whickered and
skittered sideways. “…
unfair…”

   Nistayna’s hand went to her
mouth, then her arms went around her daughter, and she turned so the
child looked to the forest.

   “It’s so fair to beat
someone who can’t flee or fight back,” murmured the
marshal. “So honorable…”

   The slender hard-faced man took one look
at the dying man, ducked to one side of his mount, and spurred the
beast toward the woods.

   “Get him!” Ryba
ordered, urging the roan after Pretar.

   Fierral nocked and released an arrow. So
did the other four guards.

   The blond man and the horse went down,
the horse screaming.

   Nylan’s legs felt weak, and he
forced himself to remain erect, despite the white flashes of death that
washed over him. He was glad he hadn’t been forced to use his
blade, but how often could he avoid it on this frigging brutal planet?

   “Damn!” muttered
Fierral. “That was a good horse.”

   Ryba studied the two corpses before
riding back to Nistayna. “One always pays for
freedom.” Her voice was cold. “I hope you will use
that freedom well.”

   Nistayna looked from the marshal to Nylan.

   “Angels are not sweet,
lady,” he added. “They are often just and terrible,
and few indeed are strong enough for justice.” Even as he
spoke, he wondered how just murdering two men had been.

   With a sigh, he walked toward Fierral.
“Put the bodies on the cart. I’ll take them up to
the tower. Then, after I unload, I’ll send someone down with
the cart for the horse. Maybe Blynnal can make a few meals out of
it.”

   Nylan glanced from Fierral to Ryba, still
seated on the roan. Ryba shifted her weight in the saddle, and he
realized that the ride had been painful for her.

   “This was a setup.”
She answered his unspoken question. “Either they brought her
back, and that proved we could be intimidated or taken, or they came
back empty-handed, and set it up for an army. This way, no one knows
for sure.” She shrugged. “People don’t
like to send out armies or armed forces when they don’t know
what happened.”

   She turned the roan back toward the
tower. “Hryessa?”

   The young guard drew her mount beside the
marshal as the two horses slowly walked uphill.

   “Stupid… they were
stupid…” muttered Berlis.

   Nylan looked from Ryba to the two
refugees, and then to the bodies on the cart. While he understood
Ryba’s logic, he couldn’t say he was pleased with
the speed with which it was made and the dispatch with which it was
executed. Literally executed, he reflected sardonically.

   He turned toward the gray mare, wondering
again. Ryba anticipated trouble, and in any
“civilized” world, that would be called murder.
Yet… was preventing abuse and death through death exactly
wrong? He shook his head. The problem was that you couldn’t
always be sure that a killing before the fact was justified, visions or
no visions.

   He untied the leather leads to the cart
horse and flicked them. The wheels creaakked as he resumed the long
climb up to the ridge, the tower, and the smithy site.

 

 

LXXXIII

 

AT THE THRAP on the door, Hissl turns from the window. The
knocking continues when he does not move.

   “Just a moment.” The
wizard composes himself and steps forward, his fingers on the hilt of
the white-bronze dagger at his belt.

   A hooded figure stands at the outside
door to Hissl’s room and bows. “Have you thought
about the keys to your wishes?”

   “The keys to my wishes? How
would you presume?”

   “You are tired of being thought
of as the second wizard, as a tool to be used and left aside. You would
like position and power in your own right.” The hooded figure
remains on the landing.

   “Stay there.” Hissl
takes two steps back, still watching his visitor, then circles behind
the table with the glass. He looks from the hooded figure to the glass,
then concentrates.

   Slowly, a shape appears in the swirling
mists, the figure of an armsman in brown leathers with a purple sash
across the thin breastplate. Behind the figure is a black stone tower.

   Hissl does not wipe his sweating brow as
he releases his hold upon the glass.

   “You are an armsman, but you
come from the black tower of the devil angels. I could kill
you.” He pauses. “I should kill you.”

   The armsman takes one step into the room
and stops. He extends his right hand, missing the index finger and
thumb, but does not throw back the hood, for all that his features had
just appeared in the screeing glass. “The angels took those
from me. I cannot return to Lornth or my family. I offer you the chance
for power and position.”

    “How can you offer me power
and position? You have nothing.” Hissl laughs. “And
you have returned to the lands of Lornth, if not Lornth
itself.”

   “My… patron would
like to see Westwind fall.”

   “Westwind?”

   “That is what the evil angels
call their tower and the lands they stole from the Lord of
Lornth.”

   “If your patron is so powerful,
why does he not take this… Westwind himself?”

   The armsman shrugs. “Lord
Nessil could not, not with threescore armsmen. You and the great hunter
could, knowing what he knows and what you know, and what I
know.”

   “And what is that?”

   “He will have to tell you
that.”

   “I am supposed to take that on
faith? Ha!” Hissl laughs again.

   “Here is another
token.” Slowly, the armsman extends an object, bending
forward and setting it on the table beside the glass.

   Hissl looks at the thunder-thrower,
smaller than he had realized. “Why would I need
that?”

   “So you will not take the
hunter on faith.”

   Hissl licks his lips as he regards the
metal object that radiates both chaos and order. Finally, he says,
“What does the hunter want?”

   “To meet with you. To plan the
conquest of Westwind.”

   “Ha! Young Relyn of Gethen had
nearly twoscore armsmen, and he failed. So did Lord Nessil. You, your
hunter, and I are supposed to succeed when they did not?”

   “I was bid to tell you that
more than a third of the angels who faced Lord Nessil are dead. Four
are with child or have a babe, and only one thunder-thrower still
works. Many of the angels are unhappy with the highest angel, and the
black mage has lost much of his magic.”

   Hissl shrugs. “If
your… patron is so eager to see me… why, have him
come to Clynya.”

   The hooded figure nods. “He
said you would bid me so. Before long, he will come.”

   “I would like to see
him.” Hissl forces a smile. “That I
would.”

 

 

LXXXIV

 

“I’LL TAKE HER.” In the
darkness, Nylan slipped out of his side of the bed, his former lander
couch, and picked up Dyliess. “She can’t be hungry.
You just fed the little pig.”

   He checked her makeshift diaper-too much
remained makeshift within Tower Black-but she was dry. Nylan eased into
the rocking chair. “Now… now… little
one…”

   Despite his gentle singing,
Dyliess’s moans changed into a full-fledged crying.

    Ryba sat up. “I’m
tired, but not enough to sleep through that.”

   The engineer kept rocking, kept singing.
Ryba flopped back on one side and rubbed her forehead. Outside the
tower, the night wind whispered, its gentle hissing lost behind the
cries and songs in the tower.

   Dyliess continued to cry for a time. Then
her cries dropped off to moans, and the moans to sniffles. Finally, she
gave a last snuffle. Nylan continued to rock, and the wind whispered
through the cracks in the shutters.

   “I can’t sleep,
now,” said Ryba, just above a whisper. “And I have
a headache.”

   Nylan refrained from saying that he had
several, and instead patted Dyliess on the back and stood, walking back
and forth between the partly open armaglass window and the cradle.
Finally sensing she was asleep, he eased Dyliess into the cradle, then
immediately knelt and patted her back with one hand while rocking the
cradle with the other.

   Dyliess took three noisy breaths and
settled back to sleep, but Nylan eased off the rocking slowly. After a
time, he stopped and returned to his side of the bed, where he sat on
the edge, eyes closed, and rubbed his temples with the fingers of his
right hand.

   “We haven’t talked
about children,” Ryba said quietly into the darkness.

   “What about them?”

   “You never answered my
question. You’re being difficult.”

   “Probably.”

   “Do you want everything we
represent lost?”

   Nylan took a deep breath. “I
don’t know. It seems as though, so long as I build towers,
and bridges, and bathhouses, and smithies, everything is fine, but when
I say…  oh… never mind… I
can’t explain how I feel.”

   “You haven’t
tried,” said Ryba in a reasonable tone.

   “You have everything figured
out. If we don’t kill these two men, dozens will arrive, and
we’ll have to kill them, too, or be killed. If we
don’t use the two men as studs, we might have our gene pool
contaminated too soon…”

   “Aren’t you being
harsh?”

   “You’ve said or done
all those.” Nylan’s shoulders slumped in the
darkness, and his eyes dropped to the cradle. Would Dyliess be as
coldly reasonable as her mother?

   “We landed with twenty-seven
women. No sooner had we landed than a local lord showed up wanting to
turn us all into serfs or concubines, or worse, and probably to
slaughter all three of you men. Since then, we have made not one
aggressive gesture toward the locals. We have not raided; we have not
stolen. All we have done is build a place to live where they
can’t and try to survive. The locals are still trying to kill
us or cheat us… or both. The local women, some of them at
least, are risking death to find refuge here. Maybe all this local male
behavior is mere lousy socialization. Maybe it’s not. Do you
want me to gamble after everything that’s happened? Do you
really want Gerlich’s genes to dominate Westwind?”

   Nylan rubbed his temples again. Finally,
he said, “The killing hurts. Even when I don’t do
it, it hurts.”

   “You think I like it?”

   “I know you
don’t,” Nylan said. “I’m
telling you something different. It’s part of this net, or
whatever it is, but when someone’s killed, a wave of
whiteness, like mental acid or something, washes through me.”

   “Ayrlyn told me the same thing
happens to her.” Ryba paused. “You both have that
ability to help healing. They’re probably tied
together.”

   “I wouldn’t be
surprised.”

   “We still haven’t
dealt with the children problem. Do you want me to risk-”

   Nylan raised a hand to wave off the
question, but realized that Ryba couldn’t see the gesture.
“You’ve been right about most things,
but… and this sounds like a woman… I still feel
violated.”

   “I’ve noticed that.
You stay on your side of the couches. Are you… do you need
time?”

   Nylan took a slow deep breath, wondering
if time would ever heal anything. “I don’t know
that time would heal things.” He paused. “Do you
want me to move my stuff elsewhere?”

   “No.”
Ryba’s voice was cool.

   “What do you want?”

   “I want you to think about
things. We can move the couches apart, if that will help.”

   Nylan puzzled at Ryba’s tone,
wondering about the wrongness again. “More visions?”

   “You could say that.”

   Nylan could sense the sadness and reserve
in the tired voice, and the anger. “I’m
sorry.”

   “So am I, but being sorry
doesn’t solve things.”

   He eased his body next to hers, putting
his arms around her shoulders.

   She pushed him away. “I
don’t need your comfort.”

   “Ryba…” He
put his arms back around her. Who else could hold her, and who else
besides Ryba was strong enough to bring them through? His eyes burned,
even as his own anger seethed, but he whispered, “Even
marshals need to be held.”

   “I don’t need
you… I don’t need anyone.”

   In the end, he looked into the darkness,
while Ryba, the marshal, the farsighted, sobbed silently, again, with
her face away from him.

   Dyliess slept, and the wind hissed
through the window.

 

 

LXXXV

 

THE WATCH TRIANGLE rang once, well before mid-morning, and
Nylan ignored the summons to the tower, continuing to lay brick,
although he hoped that it signaled Ayrlyn’s return, and that
she’d been able to find saw blades.

   The back wall was complete, and the side
walls were thigh-high. Where the front wall would be, the space for the
double doors was framed in brick-but only knee-high- and he needed to
leave spaces for two windows.

   By the time he finished using the last of
the mortar, Ayrlyn and the cart were headed down from the ridge. Nylan
squinted. There were two people on the cart seat, and two in the cart,
and five on horseback. A stranger accompanied the four guards who had
gone with the healer on her trading run.

   The engineer wiped his forehead with the
back of his hand, then looked down at the empty mortar tub. Beside it
were the baskets of crushed lava, clay, and what passed for lime. He
set the trowel down and started downhill.

   Four strange women stood by the causeway
with the healer, three shifting their weight nervously from one foot to
the other, while the shorter dark-haired woman on one end gentled her
mount.

   Ayrlyn was supervising the unloading.
“The barrels of flour and meal go down to the big shelves in
the corner off the kitchen.”

   With that, Weindre carted off a large
barrel.

   “The saw blade is for Nylan,
but put it up on the fifth level. We haven’t built a sawmill
yet.”

   Murkassa laughed at the comment as Ayrlyn
handed the blade to Berlis.

   “He says he will-then he
will.” Ayrlyn turned. “Speak of the
demon.”

   “I see you got the saw
blade.”

   “Just one, and it was nearly a
gold itself, and I had to promise that it was going up on the
Westhorns. That was an easy promise.”

   “I see you brought some
recruits. We picked up one-with a daughter.”

   “Word is getting
around.” Ayrlyn gestured toward the tower. “Selitra
went to find Ryba.”

   “I suppose you took them
all.” Gerlich stepped up beside Ayrlyn.

   “Hardly. I must have been
approached by a dozen women. I settled on these four.”

   “Only four. Imagine
that.”

   “Don’t push it,
Gerlich,” Nylan said quietly. “I haven’t
seen too much game lately, and you don’t offer much besides
that.”

   “Game is scarce.”
Gerlich eased away to the other side of the cart, frankly appraising
the three women. Relyn stood beside Cessya, an ironic smile on his
face, his semihook resting on his belt.

   Nylan still had to make and deliver the
clamp for the one-armed man-another area where he’d fallen
short, but he didn’t have the smithy working.

   With the sound of hoofs on the short
stretch of pavement heading up toward the stables, the engineer turned.
Ryba sat easily on the roan, though Nylan knew riding was slightly
painful, but not so painful as their uneasy peace, a peace held
together by separated couches, necessity… and Dyliess.

   All four women turned to Ryba as well,
the tallest shivering enough that her discomfiture was obvious to all
the guards gathered round.

   Ryba reined up, but did not dismount.
“So you wish to join the guard of Westwind?”

   “If it pleases you,
Angel,” answered the dark-haired woman, the shortest of the
group.

   “That’s
Ydrall,” whispered Ayrlyn. “She even had her
family’s permission, and brought a few things we could
use-needles, a few silvers… and some dried fruit from their
trees-pearapples, they’re called. She rides well and can use
a blade.”

   “I’m no angel.
I’m the marshal of Westwind. If you choose to remain here,
you will have to fight for it. It appears half the men in Candar would
wish to beat you down and to tear down our tower stone by stone. Are
you willing to fight them, even if they are cousins?”
Ryba’s voice was hard. “If one is your
sister’s consort?” Ryba straightened in the saddle.
“If you are that determined, you may share what we have, and
we will teach you the way of the blade and bow.”

   The four nodded, and several quietly
said, “Yes.”

   Ryba’s eyes turned to Gerlich
for a moment, then passed to Fierral. “Will you make the
arrangements, guard leader?”

   “Yes, Marshal.”
Fierral turned to the four. “Bring your gear, your things,
with me, and we’ll find you space on the third
level…”

   As Ryba turned her mount back up toward
the stables, and as the four left following Fierral, Nylan remarked,
“Too many more, and we’ll have to start making
bunks and mattresses or pallets.”

   “We’d better start
now,” answered the healer. “I’ve avoided
any large towns, places where there would be armsmen, but everywhere
I’ve been, there are women ready to leave. There
aren’t too many in any one place, but…”

   “I’m glad you avoided
the armsmen. It has to be getting more dangerous.” Nylan
added quickly, “What do we make mattresses from?”

   “I tried not to be too
obvious… and thank you for saying that you care.”
Ayrlyn smiled as Nylan swallowed, then said, “Grasses might
do for mattress filling, if they’re dried well and thoroughly
debugged, but we don’t have that much cloth to cover them, or
sew them.”

   “I wouldn’t sew them
all the way,” suggested Nylan. “Leave an end open
so it could be folded shut. That way-”

   “That makes sense. We could
tuck dried flowers in there. They might help.” Ayrlyn glanced
at Cessya. “We need to finish unloading the cart.”

   Nylan shifted his weight from one sore
foot to the other. “I’ve got more brickwork to do,
and I need to raid a lander lock. Maybe I’ll do that
first.”

   “A lander lock?”
asked Ayrlyn.

   “Something I promised for
Relyn.”

   “That’s something I
like about you, Nylan, another thing,” Ayrlyn said before
turning to Cessya. “You keep your promises.”

   A small face peered out the window from
the great room, and Nylan waved to Niera. Was she helping with the
infants? Or just keeping their mothers company or running errands?

   Niera gave the smallest of waves, then
ducked back from the window. Nylan crossed the causeway and headed
inside.

   After reclaiming a tool kit from the
fifth level of the tower, Nylan trudged uphill to the lander used for
grass storage. “I promised him eight-days ago,
longer.” He shook his head.

   The lander door was ajar, as always,
since the lock mechanism had been disconnected and the lock plates
removed, and most of the guards didn’t bother using the
sliding bolt that had replaced the automated system.

   After removing three access plates, and
sneezing intermittently the whole time from the hay and grass dust that
rose every time he moved his boots, he found something that might
work-more like an inside lock-plate shim with large screw holes at each
end. If he could bend a control arm. That meant removing another access
plate and disconnecting the other end of the rod.

   Nylan was sweating, his tattered work
shirt soaked through, by the time he had all the miscellaneous parts he
needed-or thought he needed. But he smiled as he carried them, and the
tools, back to the smithy where Cessya greeted him.

   “Now that we stowed the trading
goods, the healer said I’m supposed to make myself useful,
ser,” she announced, “and I’ve got no
interest in pulling weeds or sawing timbers. What, do you
need?”

   “More mortar.” Nylan
grinned. “Are you sure you want to make yourself useful
here?”

   “Grinding that lava rock for
mortar is better than grubbing through the mud or having that fir sap
fall all over you. The rock dust washes off. Besides, what you do
lasts, and I can say that I helped do it.”

   “Well… I appreciate
that honesty. We’ll all learn, you and Huldran and I, how to
build and operate a smithy.”

   “Sounds good. I’ll be
back in a bit. I need to get those mallets and a bucket of
water.” Cessya inclined her head and was gone.

   Nylan set the tools and parts in the
corner. Because he needed some of the cruder and heavier tools in the
lower level of the tower, he’d start work on
Relyn’s knife-holder-grip after the midday meal, hoping he
wouldn’t need to actually forge it, but just bend metal.

   He looked around the unfinished smithy.
With Cessya’s help, it might not be that long before they had
the building and the forge done. The charcoal was another story, and
trying to forge metal was going to be a disaster.

   “A smith, yet? Probably
not…” He shook his head, then began to carry in
bricks.

 

 

LXXXVI

 

NYLAN STUDIED THE completed rear wall of the would-be smithy,
and took a deep breath. He was getting tired of the building that
seemed endless. His eyes flicked to the high puffy clouds. Would it
never end?

   His mother had been right, though. No one
else cared about his troubles, except Ayrlyn. He smiled, tentatively,
then blanked his face at the sound of boots on the road.

   “How soon will you have this
forge operating?” asked Fierral as she stepped within the
uncompleted walls.

   Nylan glanced around the area, trying to
estimate. “A while,” he finally said.
“Only have half the walls done. The forge
itself…” He shook his head.

   The guard leader frowned.

   “Why?”

   “We don’t have that
long. We’re reaching the limits of the blades you forged.
We’ve never had enough of those bows. And we’re
getting more and more women showing up. They don’t have the
training the best locals do. Most of us don’t, but
we’re getting there.” Fierral ran her hand through
her short-cropped fire-red hair. “What gives us a chance is
your weapons.”

   “But you need more?”
asked the engineer.

   “We need more of everything.
Arrowheads first. Frigging Gerlich-he took off hunting this morning
with a good fifty shafts. Showed how few we have left.”

   Nylan pursed his lips. Gerlich, again.
Now what was the man up to?

   “Ser…”
Fierral asked quietly. “Do you really need a smithy built
like the tower? We just can’t wait for that. The locals
won’t.”

   Nylan looked around again. “I
can put together a forge of some sort in the next few days-I have to
have that-and develop a bellows of some sort. And you’ll have
to help me make charcoal. You can’t smith without coal or
charcoal.”

   “Whatever it takes,
ser.” Fierral’s eyes drifted to the practice yard
below the front of the tower. “I’m just a guard
leader. I’ll never be that much more, not like you or the
marshal. But the guards, all of the women, they need the
weapons.”

   Nylan understood that the words were as
close to a plea as Fierral would ever offer; that, like him, she kept
the doubts and fears and concerns held tightly.

   “I’ll get working on
it,” he promised.

   “Thank you.”

   Nylan did not sigh until she was halfway
back to the practice yard.

 

 

LXXXVII

 

THE SCOUTS RIDE vanguard nearly a kay before the column that
follows, riders under the purpled banners of Lornth and trailed by a
far longer column of foot soldiers, levies leavened with professionals
from Carpa, Lornth itself, and even from Spidlar and far Lydiar.

   As it takes the road skirting the rapids,
the army approaches the ford that prefaces the split in the trading
road. Less than a kay below the rapids lies the junction of the greater
and lesser rivers. Another kay below that is the ford, and beyond that
the river flows smooth and deep on its northward course to Rulyarth. On
the east side of the ford, the road splits, the left-hand highway
following the river, the right slowly rising into the hills until it
reaches the west branch of the River Arma where it follows Arma all the
way to the city of Armat, capital of Suthya.

   By straining, Sillek can see the edge of
the fields in the flat below and to the northwest of the hills through
which the road passes and the river rapids pass. Those fields are a
lighter green than those in Lornth, and half the ground shows brown
where the crops have not spread so early in the year.

   With the wind out of the east, occasional
drops of moisture fly from the rapids to the road, and more than once
Sillek looks to the clear sky in surprise, before turning his head
toward the dull roaring of the river.

   On Sillek’s right rides Ser
Gethen. Behind them, flanked on each side by hard-faced armsmen, ride
Terek and Jissek.

   “Fornal was reluctant to remain
at the Groves,” says Gethen.

   “Someone we can trust has
to,” answered Sillek easily.

   “Don’t speak of trust
loudly, Lord Sillek. Soldiers might presume that such planning implies
an expectation of failure.” Gethen laughs. “Call
that the insight of an old man.”

   “You’re scarcely old,
with those few gray hairs,” points out the younger man,
looking to the low hill beyond, the last hill before the ford. His face
tightens as one of the scouts in the van pauses his mount at the hill
crest, then turns and gallops back toward the main force.

   “I’d say that means a
Suthyan force holds the ford,” Gethen says.

   “Probably.”

   They continue to ride toward the
messenger.

   “Suthyans, Lord
Sillek,” announces the rider in the purple tunic.

   “How many?”

   “Not more than score twenty,
I’d say. Two- to threescore mounted, and none are
archers.”

   Sillek nods. “Stay back on the
hill. Don’t let them see you. We’ll be there
presently.”

   “Yes, ser.” The
messenger heads back toward the five other scouts.

   “What do you plan,
Lord?” asks Gethen.

   “To destroy them,”
answers Sillek.

   “You have more than enough
forces to make them retreat.” Gethen turns in the saddle to
survey the more than two thousand troops following.

   “If I let them escape, then
I’ll have to fight them later.”

   “They are outnumbered, and will
fight desperately, and that will cost you
disproportionately,” advises Gethen.

   “In a head-to-head battle,
yes.”

   The older man waits. “I await
your orders, Lord.”

   “With the option to disengage
if I plan something too stupid, Ser Gethen?” asks Sillek with
a smile.

   “You are both your
father’s and your mother’s son, I think.”

   They proceed to the grassy back side of
the hill overlooking the ford-and the Suthyans-where Sillek gathers in
the chief armsmen and the two wizards.

   “Hold the body of the troops
just below the hill crest on this side,” Sillek orders the
chief armsmen. “Keep them still. About half the mounted
troopers will come with me. We’ll hold the hill crest in full
view of the Suthyans.”

   Gethen frowns, but says nothing.

   Sillek turns to Terek and continues with
his instructions. “You and Jissek will be with us, and when I
give the order, you’re to start casting those firebolts into
their ranks. We’ll start downhill, slowly, but stay short of
really effective bow range. They don’t have any Bleyani
bowmen, thank the light.”

   Sillek pauses and scans the faces, then
bites back the words he might have said, instead adding,
“We’ll be showing less force than they have, and by
coming downhill, we’re also showing that I’m young
and inexperienced. The firebolts will get them angry, because
that’s not fighting fair, and they’ll come charging
after us-”

   “If they
don’t?” asks Gethen.

   Sillek shrugs. “Then we stop a
third of the way down the hill and let Terek and Jissek fry as many of
them as we can. I’m not in this for honor. The idea is to
take the river and Rulyarth as effectively as possible. If you would,
Ser Gethen, I’d like you to arrange the forces here so as to
trap the Suthyans once they cross the hill crest. Could we set the
pikes so their horse couldn’t stop in time?”

   Gethen purses his lips. Then his lips
twist. “You have a nasty turn of thought, Lord Sillek.
Nasty… but it should work.”

   The chief armsmen nod in agreement.

   Sillek looks to the armsmen.
“Don’t let anyone charge down that hill. If anyone
tries it, I’ll have Terek turn him into charred bacon. Let
them all know that, if you have to.”

   The grizzle-bearded armsman on the right
coughs and spits from his saddle and onto the damp grass.
“Isn’t that being a mite hard, ser? Especially when
it’s an easy fight, us havin‘ so many more than
them?”

   “No. We’ll need every
man we have alive and well when we reach Rulyarth. I’m not
interested in glory hounds. You can tell them that, too. I want to win
with the fewest lives lost.”

   The slightest nod from the oldest armsman
greets his statement.

   Shortly, Sillek leads more than twoscore
mounted troops over the hill crest and slowly downhill under a pair of
purpled banners. To the right of the hill is the river, and from
farther east comes the muted rumbling of rapids above the point where
the two rivers meet.

   A trumpet sounds from the Suthyan forces,
and the Suthyan horse, numbering nearly twice those Sillek leads, form
up on the flat before the long gentle slope that leads up toward the
banners of Lornth.

   The Suthyans wait as Sillek’s
troop descends. In time, Sillek gestures, and his troopers rein up.

   The Suthyans continue to wait.

   Sillek shrugs and says, “Make
ready, Wizards.”

   “We are ready, Lord,”
answers Terek.

   “Now!” orders Sillek.

   Terek concentrates, almost wavering in
his saddle, but a white-red bolt of fire arcs downhill and into the
mounted Suthyans.

   A single horse rears, flame rising from
where the rider had been, and screams as only a horse in pain and agony
can.

   Jissek follows with a second firebolt,
then Terek with a third.

   By the time a half-dozen Suthyans have
been brought down with wizard fire, some of the horse troopers trot
uphill. Then, the trumpet sounds, and all the Suthyans begin the charge
toward the apparently outnumbered Lornians.

   “A few more
firebolts,” orders Sillek, before turning to the armsman
mounted on the horse beside him. “Let them get within a
hundred cubits.”

   “That’s too close,
ser. They’ll chase if they get to two hundred.”

   “Two hundred, then. Would you
suggest a flat gallop, or a quick trot?”

   The other grins. “A good
commander would order a gallop, get you clear, then a walk. A dumb one
always orders a quick trot, then a gallop, and your mount’s
got nothing left.”

   Sillek grins back. “A quick
trot to the top of the hill, then.”

   As they have talked, three more Suthyan
troopers have been incinerated, and the Suthyan mounted are riding
quickly toward them.

   “Back!” orders
Sillek, after a quick glance at the armsman, who nods. “Quick
trot!”

   The Suthyans are less than a hundred
cubits behind when Sillek’s horse crosses the hill crest and
he orders his mounted troop to swing to the west.

   “Get the pikes set!”
snaps Gethen. “Horse on the flanks! Archers-stand fast!
Between horse and flank!”

   The Suthyan horse is a ragged line by the
time the riders surge over the crest chasing the
“fleeing” Lornian forces.

   Fully twenty horse and riders are spitted
on the waiting pikes. The others slow into a milling mass.

   “Archers!” shouts
Gethen, and the arrows turn half the remaining Suthyans into
pincushions.

   Perhaps a dozen horse troopers swing out
to the flanks, only to be encircled and brought down by
Sillek’s troopers on the left, and Gethen’s
reserves on the right.

   “Move up! Move up!”
snaps Gethen, and the pikemen and the .foot move forward.

   “Measured pace! Measured pace!
Archers forward and to the flanks,” orders Gethen.

   Sillek brings the wizards back to the
hill crest. By now the Suthyan foot are more than halfway up the hill.

   “Firebolts!” he
orders.

   Jissek strains, and a small ball arches
into the left side. Greasy smoke rises, along with the shriek of a man
who rolls in the damp grass-in vain as he writhes before subsiding into
a blackened lump.

   “Terek.”

   The chief wizard casts another bolt, and
two Suthyan troopers turn to flaming brands.

   A trumpet bugles, and the Suthyan forces
begin to trot uphill.

   “Idiots,” mutters
Sillek, looking over his shoulder to see that the pikes are set in the
forward position. Then he signals, and his horse troopers reform in a
double line, waiting.

   As the Suthyan forces halt at the hill
crest, wavering in sight of the pikes, Gethen drops his arm, and arrows
sheet through the Suthyans.

   The line wavers, and then breaks,
ignoring the shouted commands from the Suthyan commanders.

   Gethen swings his arm, and the Lornian
horse charges.

   Less than twoscore Suthyans scramble into
the river, and less than half those make it across the ford.

   On the west side of the river, Sillek
reins up and watches. His eyes stray, not to the hundreds of Suthyan
bodies, nor to the fallen horse, but to the relative handful of fallen
Lornians. He turns to Gethen.

   Gethen cleans his blade and turns to
Sillek. “They’ll call you a butcher,
Lord.”

   “I don’t care what
they call me, just so long as they respect me.” Sillek takes
a deep breath and looks to see that they are beyond easy earshot of the
wizards and the chief armsmen, who are directing the looting and burial
details. “Fighting is not glorious, and anyone who thinks
so…” He does not finish the thought, but shakes
his head.

   “Many in your land would
dispute that, Lord.”

   “Even as I save their sons,
yet.” Sillek laughs harshly. “Would you dispute me,
Gethen?”

   “No.” Gethen laughs
harshly. “You have learned young what many never learn. But
do not speak it except to those as gray-haired as I, or those who have
buried sons lost in useless battles, not unless you wish to kill
them.”

   “I won’t.”
Sillek tightens his lips. “Is this useless battle?”

   “It is less useless than most,
My Lord. Else I would not be here.”

   “On to Rulyarth.”

   “On to Rulyarth,”
echoes Gethen.

   “After our gloriously
victorious troops claim their just rewards,” Sillek adds
darkly and under his breath.

 

 

LXXXVIII

 

NYLAN TAPPED THE brick level on the mortar and troweled away
the excess mortar. That finished the base of the forge. Sometime,
Huldran and Cessya and the others could set the roof timbers. He had to
finish the forge and start making more weapons… for more
killing.

   “Need more mortar,
ser?” asked Huldran.

   “No.” He glanced
toward the west, but the sun was just above the peaks, and they
wouldn’t have much time before the evening triangle rang. He
rubbed his shoulders. After a year, things should be easier, but it
didn’t seem that way. He paused as he saw Ayrlyn hurrying
toward the unfinished smithy. “I sense trouble.”

   “We’ve got more than
enough, ser,” said Huldran. “That new one, Desain,
she thinks that showers are unhealthy, and the other one, Ryllya, she
had a fit when the healer cut her hair. Said her strength was in her
hair. Things like that remind me how strange this place is.”

   “It is strange.”
Nylan wondered what was driving Ayrlyn.

   “Here comes the
healer,” announced Huldran.

   “Gerlich is gone,”
Ayrlyn announced even before she stepped inside the brick-framed
doorway of the smithy. Her face was flushed.

   “How do you know?”

   “Day before yesterday, he said
he’d be gone for two days-that he’d been having
trouble finding game. He took a mount and the old gray for a pack
animal. Llyselle found that out when she was cleaning the stables. She
told me, and I told Ryba. Today, I happened to look at his space, and
both bows were gone. There were rags folded where his clothes were. I
started checking, and he took all the coins in the strongbox I had
hidden on the fifth level.” Ayrlyn wiped her forehead.
“Ryba has the golds somewhere, but that’s a lot of
silvers, and a bunch of coppers. He also made off with a handful of
blades-the poor ones in the back of the chest.”

   Nylan nodded. “He’s
also been sneaking arrows out of the tower.”

   “You didn’t say
anything?”

   Huldran’s eyes widened as they
moved from Ayrlyn to Nylan and back again.

   “I didn’t know. All I
knew was that every time he went hunting he came back with a few arrows
missing, sometimes more than a few shafts. Then the morning he left,
Fierral told me he’d taken fifty shafts hunting. I just
thought he was a poor shot, but didn’t want to admit it.
Now…”

   “It makes sense,”
pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “Narliat’s departure
was no accident, either, then,” Nylan continued.
“That bastard Gerlich has something arranged.” He
turned to Huldran. “Can you clean up? The healer and I need
to find the marshal.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   The engineer and the healer headed toward
the tower.

   “Where is she?” asked
Ayrlyn.

   “Up in the tower, I think. I
carted Dyliess around this morning. Bricklaying is slow with an infant
strapped to you, but she liked the motion, I only had trouble if I
stood still.”

   Nylan and Ayrlyn found the marshal on the
fifth level, working with one of the newcomers. Saryn sparred with
another and Fierral with a third. At a break in the sparring, Nylan
motioned to Ryba.

   The marshal stopped. “With two
of you, it must be serious.” Ryba turned to Saryn.
“Desain needs to stop letting her wrist droop.”

   “I can manage that.”
Saryn laughed.

   “And Fierral,” added
Ryba. “Nistayna doesn’t have any follow-through.
She’s afraid she’ll hurt someone. If she
doesn’t, they’ll kill her.”

   Ryba racked her wand, and the three
walked up the stone steps.

   On the top level of the tower, Ellysia
sat in the rocking chair, holding Dephnay on her knee with one hand and
rocking the cradle containing Dyliess with the other, the cradle that
now rested at the foot of the two separated lander couches.

   “Thank you, Ellysia,”
said Ryba. “You can go now.” She crossed the room
and opened both windows wide.

   Behind her Ellysia shivered as the wind
gusted into the room, then stood and picked up Dephnay. Dyliess started
to murmur the moment the unattended cradle began to slow.

   As Ellysia, shivering, her face flushed,
started down the steps, Ryba eased Dyliess from the cradle.
“You’re about to wake up anyway, little
one.”

   Ryba sat in the rocking chair and
unfastened her shirt. Dyliess began to nurse, as greedily as always,
reflected Nylan.

   “What is this
problem?” asked the marshal.

   “Gerlich is gone,”
said Ayrlyn. “He also took all the silvers from the lower
strongbox.”

   “I checked the golds this
morning. They’re all here,” Ryba said flatly.
“He doesn’t have enough coin to do that
much.”

   “He still stole close to four
golds in silver and copper,” pointed out Ayrlyn.

   “He took everything he could
sneak out, including more than fifty arrows, a packhorse, and some of
the more battered blades,” Nylan added.

   “Those blades he took are worth
close to five golds. He could buy close to a score of
armsmen,” explained Ayrlyn. “Hired blades are cheap
here.”

   “Life is cheap here,”
said Ryba. “Look at those cairns.” Her head
inclined toward the open tower window.

   “You think he’ll do
that?” Nylan’s guts already gave him one answer.

   “He will, and he will be back,
with an army behind him,” agreed Ryba tiredly, shifting
Dyliess from one breast to the other.

   “You see this?” asked
Nylan.

   “Not all of it, just a
fragment, just enough.”

   Ayrlyn frowned, but said nothing.

   “What Gerlich took
won’t be enough, and he knows it,” Ryba pointed out.

   “Narliat left earlier than
Gerlich,” said Ayrlyn.

   The triangle rang for the evening meal.

   “He’s acting as
Gerlich’s advance agent. Gerlich tries to let someone else
face the dangers first.” Ryba looked down at Dyliess.
“Easy there… easy…” A rueful
smile crossed her face.

   “Should we beef up the standing
guard?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “For how long? We still need
food. We need to get more things working, like the smithy, and possibly
a few cows or goats. Not every guard can nurse, and we won’t
always have guards with infants at the same time. Guards have to work
and guard, or Westwind will fall. I don’t know when Gerlich
will try his attack. The only thing we can do is make sure that all the
guards have their weapons at hand, whatever they’re doing.
Fierral can build a permanent watchpost on top of the ridge, with
another warning triangle. Outside of that…” Ryba
shrugged.

   Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances.

   “What can we do, besides what
we’re already doing?” asked Ryba.
“Let’s go eat.” She slipped Dyliess from
her lap into the carrypack, stood, and headed down the stairs.
“You’ve eaten, little pig. It’s your
mother’s turn.”

   Ayrlyn glanced at Nylan and shrugged.

   He shrugged back.

   As they entered the great room, guards
were still straggling in. Nylan almost stopped short at the third table
below the first two. It only had one bench, but three of the new guards
sat there, flanking Istril and Weryl.

   Nylan paused. “Hello there,
young fellow.”

   Weryl gurgled. Nylan patted his shoulder.

   Istril smiled. “He’s
good.”

   “I’m sure he
is.” Nylan returned the smile, hiding a certain dismay. How
had he ended up with three children born within a season of each other?
His eyes flicked to Ryba’s back, but he kept smiling as he
nodded to the three newcomers before turning. One was called
Nistayna-that he remembered.

   A spicy scent Nylan had not smelled
before filled the area, and he looked toward the big pot that Kadran
set in the middle of the table.

   “Something new,”
announced the cook. “You take one of those flat biscuit
things and pour a ladle of this over the biscuit.”

   “It better be good,”
muttered Weindre, loud enough for those at all three tables to hear.

   “It’s too good for
you,” snapped Kadran.

   Even the newcomers at the third table
smiled briefly.

   Ryba slid into her chair, and Nylan and
Ayrlyn sat on the benches across from each other.

   When the woven grass basket came to
Nylan, he broke off a piece of bread, sniffed it, and drew in the spicy
aroma. “This even smells good.”

   “That’s
Blynnal’s new bread,” mumbled Relyn from beside
Ayrlyn. “It’s much better.”

   “It tastes like real
bread,” added Huldran.

   Nylan took a thick biscuit and then two
ladles full of the main course, a thin stew or thick sauce filled with
chunks of meat and assorted chunks of other things, presumably roots or
other vegetable matter, and poured it over the flat biscuit.

   He looked at the brown mass dubiously,
then sniffed. Nothing smelled burned or rancid. In fact, the aroma was
pleasant, somewhere between minty and something else. Finally, he took
a mouthful of meat, sauce, and biscuit.

   Ayrlyn and Ryba watched.

   “You’re braver than I
am,” murmured the healer.

   Nylan nodded, chewed, and swallowed.
“It’s good. I can’t tell what’s
in it, but it’s good.” As he spoke, he could feel
his forehead warming, then his face, and then his mouth and throat.
“Whewww!” He reached for his mug and downed the
cold water. It didn’t help, but the bread did.

   “Do you still think
it’s good?” asked Ryba with a smile, patting
Dyliess’s back as she squirmed in the chest carry-pack.

   Nylan nodded, and took a second mouthful,
a much smaller one.

   “Another Blynnal
special?” Ayrlyn asked Relyn.

   He looked puzzled.

   “Did Blynnal cook
this?”

   “Yes. She is a good cook. You
are fortunate to have her.” Relyn ate without water, and
without apparent discomfort.

   “They clearly like food hotter
than we’re used to,” observed Ryba.

   After taking a very small bite of her
dinner, Ayrlyn nodded.

   Nylan broke off another chunk of bread,
but kept eating, ignoring Ayrlyn’s amused smile.

 

 

LXXXIX

 

NYLAN WIPED HIS forehead and looked down at the coals, at his
quick-built forge. Without a chimney and in a structure without
completed walls, with no doors, open gaps for windows, and no roof,
Nylan was trying to implement a combination of basic metallurgy and
low-level technology, and use his particular abilities with the local
magic field to create a piece of metal shaped and strong enough to
pierce plate armor and to maim or kill those who wore such armor-or do
worse to those who didn’t.

   He’d already tried to melt the
iron, and that hadn’t worked. It took both charcoal and green
wood, and the bellows, and half the time the iron burned rather than
melted.

   As he thought of the arrows and blades
Fierral had pleaded for, he sighed twice-once for the thought that
damned little was settled in human affairs without some kind of force
and once for his unfulfilled promise. He still hadn’t
finished the clamp device he’d promised Relyn-another tool of
war, except, for the one-handed man, it seemed more defensive than
offensive.

   Nylan raised his eyes to Huldran,
standing by the bellows. The bellows hadn’t been that hard,
just three pieces of wood joined with leftover synthetic sheeting and
using flap valves and a nozzle. Creating a tube under the center of the
throwntogether brick forge had been tricky, finally accomplished by
having Rienadre fire more than a dozen bricks with a hole in the center
and lining them up and mortaring them in place. The air nozzle was a
modified lander fuel sieve- greatly modified.

   The first charcoal burn hadn’t
worked. More than half the wood turned into ashes. Another quarter
hadn’t burned at all. About a quarter had been transformed
into charcoal. The second burn had gone better. Maybe half the wood had
become charcoal. So after more than an eight-day, Nylan had two heaping
piles of charcoal behind the smithy and a half-dozen disgruntled and
sooty guards. They hadn’t cared that he was sooty.

   It was early summer, and the purple
starflowers had bloomed and were fading, and the crops seemed to be
taking, at least the potatoes, which were critical. One of the
remaining ewes had lambed, and three of the mares had foaled, and yet
another woman, older than the others, had claimed refuge. Nylan was
losing track of all the names of the newcomers. Names or not, Fierral
slammed them into blade and bow training, and into logging or field
work-except for the timid Blynnal, who had transformed mealtime from an
ordeal into something less arduous.

   Nylan looked down at the open forge. To
save the charcoal, he had built the fire with wood and let it burn down
to coals before easing the charcoal into place.

   Now, he had two hammers, and a makeshift
anvil created by cold-hammering sheet alloy around a stone block wedged
between the sides of a green spruce log buried in the ground. The
anvil, such as it was, stood waist-high. Nylan hoped that was correct.
He had one chisel, and a makeshift pair of tongs.

   Huldran still stood by the bellows,
waiting. “Tell me when, ser.”

   “I wish I really
knew,” Nylan muttered to himself, as he took the square of
alloy, one of the ones he knew was iron-based and
lower-temperature-rated, in the tongs and thrust it into the coals.
“Now… slowly.”

   The engineer watched until the metal
finally turned cherry-red, when he put it on the anvil and picked up
the chisel. “Hit the chisel,” he told Huldran, and
the guard struck the chisel squarely.

   Nylan tried not to wince. “You
hold the tongs, and let me have the hammer.”

   Huldran took the tongs without comment,
and Nylan brought the hammer down, trying to use his senses to find
some grain, some pattern in the metal. In a dozen strikes, he finally
had a shape that looked remotely like the war arrow that lay in the
unframed and unshuttered front window.

   Nylan reclaimed the tongs, and sent
Huldran back to the bellows.

   After the next heat, he bent the sides
back and forged or welded them back on each other. With the third heat,
he drew out the edges. With the fourth came more ordering through his
senses, and finally a slightly overlarge arrowhead lay on the alloy
anvil.

   “Going to have to do this
quicker - or find some other way.”

   “Could you cast
them?” asked Huldran.

   “Right now, I don’t
see how. This is as hot as I can get this with just charcoal, and the
metal’s nowhere close to melting. Casting would be a lot
easier, but I can’t seem to melt it without burning
it.”

   “What about copper or
bronze?”

   Nylan shrugged. “Even if we
melted down the copper buried in the landers, copper arrowheads
wouldn’t do much good against even iron plate.”

   “Oh…”

   “Exactly.” Nylan
lifted the tongs. “So I’d best get a lot
faster.”

   When Nylan looked up from the sixth
arrowhead, he could sense that the charcoal was almost gone. Each of
the killer arrowheads had been easier, but each still took time.

   Since the wood made a good base and
stretched the charcoal, he set down the hammer.
“We’ll build up the fire with those heartwood logs.
Then we’ll take a break while it burns down to coals. All
right?”

   “That’s fine by me,
ser.” Huldran blotted her sweat-dampened forehead.
“Do you think Smithing’s always this
hard?”

   “We’re making a lot
of mistakes. I just don’t know what they are, but
it’s always been hard work.” He walked out through
the open space that was meant for doors to the pile of split and cut
logs. Huldran followed.

   Once the open forge was blazing, and
Nylan hoped the heat wouldn’t crack too many bricks, he
headed down the road toward the tower. Under the clear sky, the sun
beat down, so much that he still did not cool off much once he was away
from the forge.

   He walked across the short causeway, but
stopped short of the door. He could sense people in the great room-
guards and infants. Between meals, the great room had become almost a
de facto nursery, which made a sort of sense to Nylan, because it had
the most ventilation and the best light.

   After entering the tower, he slipped
along the side away from the great room and to the bathhouse, where he
managed to remove some sweat, soot, and grime. Then he squared his
shoulders and headed for the great room.

   Siret was the closest to the door, and
she had Kyalynn in one arm, and Dephnay in the other.

   Nylan looked down at his silver-haired
daughter, her eyes the darker green of Siret’s. Kyalynn
looked back. He smiled. She did not, although her mother did. Slowly,
he extended his index finger, gently letting it slide into
Kyalynn’s open palm. Almost as slowly, her chubby fingers
wrapped around his finger. He wiggled his finger, and her hands
tightened. He wiggled again, and Kyalynn gurgled.

   “She’s
strong,” he said.

   “Yes.” Siret smiled
again.

   “I’m sorry. I
didn’t know,” he confessed.

   “I know that. The marshal told
me a long time ago. Do you mind?”

   “Mind?” asked Nylan,
wiggling his finger to keep Kyalynn interested.

   “That I agreed to have your
child? After the battle with the demons, I thought… I never
would have a child.” The silver-haired guard shook her head
gravely. “I hadn’t thought that would ever upset
me, but it did. It really did. Then after the first battle here, I
decided that…” Siret paused.
“You’re not mad at me?”

   “I was a little upset-but not
at you,” he admitted.

   “You came when I-when we-needed
you.”

   “I didn’t know then,
either, but I knew you needed help.”

   Siret looked down for a moment, then met
his eyes. “I am not yours, and I will never belong to any
man. But… I’m glad you are Kyalynn’s
father.”

   Nylan finally looked away.
“It’s hard for me.”

   “You are a healer, as well as
an engineer. The other healer… you know that she cries when
she thinks no one is listening?”

   Ayrlyn, the self-contained and competent
healer and trader? “No. I didn’t know.
Or… maybe I didn’t want to see it.” He
paused. “And you, Siret, what about you? The night vision,
the feeling that you can sense things you cannot see?”

   “They help. This is a strange
world, but in many ways better than what I left.”

   “I trust you will always find
it that way.” Nylan cleared his throat. “And that
you keep working on those new skills.”

   “I hope that Kyalynn has such
skills. I wouldn’t want her to be just a guard.”
Siret’s green eyes darted toward the stairs, as if to ask if
Ryba were descending.

   Kyalynn yawned.

   “Well… work on your
own skills.” Nylan wiggled his finger out of the sleepy
Kyalynn’s hand and stood.

   Siret offered a smile and rose.
“I need to put them to sleep while I can. Ellysia can watch
them while I practice and do a few things for me.”

   Istril and Weryl were at the next table,
and Nylan crossed the stone tiles. Weryl’s eyes were already
green, and they locked in on Nylan as the engineer approached his son.

   “He knows his
father,” Istril said quietly.

   “I should have realized
earlier. There were clues there, but I just never
thought…” Nylan shook his head.

   “I’m not upset. It
was my choice. You’ve saved my life twice, you
know.” Istril gave a wry smile. “And I
don’t even know what to call you. Part of me thinks of you as
an officer and ‘ser,’ and part as Nylan.”

   “Whatever you feel comfortable
with.”

   “ ‘Nylan’
in private and ‘ser’ in public.”

   Nylan smiled. “All
right.”

   “You know,” Istril
said quietly, “I’m stuck here. When I’ve
been hunting, I’ve gone down lower, especially last summer.
The air was so hot and thick that I felt like I couldn’t
breathe. Ayrlyn can do it. She’s from Svenn. I
couldn’t. The guards that go with her-they all lose weight,
and it takes them days to feel good after they return. That’s
why Ayrlyn takes different ones each time. You’re only half
Sybran. You could handle the heat and thick air. So could Weryl.
He’s young… but I couldn’t.”
She shrugged. “It’s not bad here, though, and
it’s getting better. I’m glad Blynnal
came.”

   Weryl made a stretching motion, as if to
reach out to Nylan. Nylan took the small hand and let Weryl’s
fingers curl around his.

   “Oooohhh…”

   “He likes you.”
Istril shifted the boy onto her other knee, closer to Nylan.

   “I’d hope
so.”

   “What are you going to
do?”

   “Right now, I’m
trying to figure out a faster way to forge arrowheads. We need a lot of
them. If I can solve that problem, I might go to work on planning and
building a sawmill…”

   In time, Nylan finally stood.

   “I understand, Nylan, if you
don’t want to spend too much time with me. But keep stopping
to see Weryl.” Istril’s face was calm, somewhere
between content and resigned.

   “I will.” What else
can I do? he thought. They are my children. Why… why did you
do this to me? Why did I refuse to see what was happening? Because it
was easier? He forced a smile, which softened as Weryl
“gooed” again.

   Either Istril or Siret would have been
warmer to him than Ryba, and Siret really wasn’t that
interested-or so she said-in any man. Yet he never even considered
them-because he was still bound in the officer-marine separation? And
Ayrlyn, crying in the night?

   Again, nothing was quite what it seemed
on the surface, even with people. He supposed people still thought he
and Ryba slept together. That was another problem they hadn’t
resolved-or he hadn’t. Surprisingly, Ryba hadn’t
pushed. What else did she know?

   He snorted once, ironically, as he
started up the steps to the fifth level. Wasn’t that always
the way it was? Ryba knowing, and not saying, and Nylan the great mage,
bewildered and struggling. He snorted again.

   In the dimness of the fifth level,
Ellysia was practicing, puffing, with Saryn, Hryessa, and Ydrall. Nylan
eased around the sparring and toward the section of storage shelves
above the unused weapons laser. He scooped the parts he had taken from
the lander and roughly bent into shape into a worn leather bag that had
been some poor raider’s purse.

   Then he headed back down to the lower
level. As he passed the third level, he saw Siret rocking Kyalynn to
sleep. Dephnay, on her knee, looked wide awake. Nylan found Relyn in
the space off the kitchen, laboriously smoothing what looked to be a
wooden tray.

   “That looks good,”
observed the smith-engineer.

   “I said I’d help her.
She’s too quiet.” Relyn looked up.
“Blynnal. She won’t ask for anything.”

   “Some people won’t.
She’s improved the food a lot.”

   Relyn grinned. “Sometimes, I
get a little extra.”

   “I haven’t forgotten
my promise,” Nylan said, taking out the pieces of metal.
“Like everything around here, it’s taking longer.
If you’ll come here, I’d like to measure these.
I’ll probably have to hot-hammer-or whatever they call it-
these together, but I wanted to check the fit first.”

   Relyn extended his hook.

   Nylan slipped the pieces in place, then
nodded toward the knife. “I need to see how tight it should
be.”

   “As tight as you can make it,
Mage.”

   The knife slid into the makeshift clamp
easily, too easily. Nylan studied the construction, then took his own
knife and scratched where the changes should be.

   “We’ll try
again.”

   “You do not admit failure, do
you?”

   Nylan laughed, harshly. “Life
is trial, and error. Those who succeed are those who survive their
failures and keep trying. So far, I’ve been lucky.”

   Relyn looked back at the tray.
“It is not luck-that I know. You understand how the world
works.” He smiled wryly. “I hope to learn that,
too.”

   “You probably know more about
that than I do,” admitted Nylan.

   “Never, Mage. You refuse to
accept how much you do know.”

   “That’s
all,” Nylan said, uneasy with Relyn’s words.
“Now, I have to make it work, and then forge scores and
scores of arrowheads.”

   “You will,” promised
Relyn.

   “I hope so.” Nylan
wished he were as sure as the young man from Carpa, but when he
returned to the smithy, he carried the pieces for Relyn’s
clamp.

   Huldran was waiting, and they loaded more
of the charcoal into the forge.

 

 

XC

 

ZELDYAN EASES HERSELF into the armchair facing the alcove
where the lady Ellindyja embroiders.

   “You do me honor,
Lady,” offers Ellindyja.

   “You are the Lady of
Lornth,” responds Zeldyan easily.

   “No longer. That is your
position, now, but you are most kind to recall my past…
honor.” The needle carries crimson thread into the white
fabric. “How might I be of help?”

   “I thought you might like to
hear. There was a dispatch from Lord Sillek, Lady,” answers
Zeldyan.

   “And you were thoughtful enough
to come to tell me, and in your condition, too. I appreciate that. I
do.” Ellindyja knots the crimson strand and threads green
through the eye of the needle.

   “I am well indeed, only sore,
and that is passing. Nesslek is strong, and healthy indeed, and for
that I am glad.” Zeldyan laughs. “But I stray. Lord
Sillek has taken the ford below the great fork and nears Rulyarth.
According to the dispatch, they have destroyed nearly a thousand
Suthyans, and less than that number stands ready to defend Rulyarth.
The city was never walled, you know,” she adds
conversationally.

   “I had heard that
somewhere,” Ellindyja assents. “You understand
these things, I can tell. It must help, being raised in an honorable
warrior’s holding.”

   “I was fortunate,”
Zeldyan says, shifting her slender figure in the chair. “My
mother was learned, and taught my father and her children. My father
was skilled in arms and taught her and us both honor and
arms.”

   “He taught arms to the lady
Erenthla?” Ellindyja raises her eyebrows.

   “But, of course. He wanted no
helpless women in his holding.” Zeldyan smiles as she rises.
“I must go, but I did want you to know that Lord Sillek is
well.”

   “I appreciate your
thoughtfulness, Lady.”

   Zeldyan inclines her head.

   As the door closes behind her, Ellindyja
snaps the green thread, and knots it in a quick, hard motion.

 

 

XCI

 

THE ALLOY IN the tongs began to change color, getting redder
under the influence of the coals. Above the open doorway to the
unfinished smithy, a fly droned, circling toward the sweating
smith-engineer.

   Arrowheads! Nylan was already sick of
dealing with them, despite the acclaim the product had received from
Istril and Fierral. Roughly two hundred had been finished. Nylan
smiled. That meant two hundred that Fierral and the marines had to
smooth and sharpen and fletch-and that also meant netting birds. Relyn
had proved helpful there, explaining how to net them and which ones
worked better.

   With the tongs, Nylan flipped the red-hot
metal onto the now-dented makeshift anvil, then began hot-cutting the
shape of the arrowhead with the chisel and hammer while Huldran took
over the tongs.

   The hammer rose, and fell, and Nylan
moved the chisel. Sparks of metal flew with each impact. One rough
shape lay on the anvil, and Nylan began the cutting on the next. He
concentrated on following the hidden grain of the metal, letting his
senses guide him, even more than his sight.

   That guidance resulted in stronger
arrowheads, but each was subtly different from the next-not enough,
Nylan hoped, to affect their flight.

   Through the roof beams, the sun beat into
the smithy, and sweat dripped down Nylan’s face. He brushed
back a fly, twice, before it buzzed across the meadow toward the smelly
sheep from whence it had probably come. Nylan blinked back sweat. While
he and Huldran forged, around them Cessya and, surprisingly to Nylan,
Nistayna had worked on getting the roof timbers in place, but the roof
had to wait for the completion of the forge itself.

   Each day, after completing forging, Nylan
mixed up some mortar and added to the hood and chimney of the forge.
The door and windows could wait.

   Before the metal cooled enough to need
reheating, he had five shapes cut. With each day, his strokes, while
probably crude compared to the local smiths, had gotten surer, and the
finished product needed less and less smoothing.

   Nylan nodded, and Huldran swung the uncut
section of metal back into the coals. The smith-engineer brushed the
sweat off his forehead with the back of his forearm, then took the
tongs. “Need more air, Huldran.”

   The stocky blonde began to pump the
bellows. While some air wheezed out through the sides of the bellows,
most came up through the air nozzle, and the coals glowed hotter.

   Nylan walked out to the dwindling pile of
charcoal-another problem-and used a shovel to bring in another scoop,
which he distributed evenly. Then he flipped the metal to get a better
heat distribution.

   He lifted the metal onto the anvil and
turned to Huldran. “You try one.”

   Huldran just nodded and slowly picked up
the hammer and chisel.

   Clung!

   Nylan winced as he felt the shiver up the
guard’s arm. “Angle the chisel a shade-to the
outside. It cuts cleaner, and it doesn’t hurt as
much.”

   The second blow did not ring quite so
off-key. Huldran finished two rough arrow-shaped forms before Nylan
lifted the metal back into the forge.

   “Harder than it looks,
ser,” Huldran admitted as she pumped the bellows.

   “Yes. You didn’t do
badly. My first were pretty crude. I’ll do the next batch,
and then you can do some.”

   “You’re a lot faster,
and Fierral needs a lot of arrows.”

   “I know, but you need some
practice, too. Westwind needs more than one person who can handle
things like this. Otherwise, an accident-or an arrow from one of the
locals- could wipe out everything I’ve learned.”

   When the metal came out of the forge
again, cherry-red, Nylan resumed cutting. The two kept working until
past mid-morning, when they came to the end of the sheet of alloy. All
that remained were a few scraps that Nylan swept into an already
battered wooden bucket.

   “Someday, I’ll work
on reforging the scraps into stock. I think that’s what they
call it.” He wiped his forehead. “We need a break,
and I need to find another panel in one of the landers that
won’t take forever to unfasten.”

   “I’ll bank the
fire,” Huldran volunteered.

   “Thanks.” Nylan
blotted the sweat out of his eyes again, then began to walk downhill
along the trail he hoped would someday be a real road.

   To the south, by the cairns, grazed the
handful of sheep. Desain and Ryllya were weeding and working the
fields, along with Selitra, who was supervising while weeding and
cleaning out the small irrigation ditches.

   A cart, carrying a stack of rough-cut
planks for the smithy roof-slate was out, now that the laser was
gone-creaked down from the ridge. Weindre walked beside the cart horse,
one hand briefly touching her blade.

   On the flat exercise area beyond the
causeway, two figures sparred.

   One was Cessya, the other Relyn. Relyn
was using the knife and clamp over his hook, but had fashioned a wooden
cover for the blade.

   Nylan stopped and watched for a time as
the wooden wands flashed.

   The two paused, and Relyn turned to
Nylan. “It works. I have much to learn about using a blade
left-handed, but the knife helps.”

   “He’s…
better… than that…” puffed Cessya.
“Glad he wasn’t this good back when he
attacked.”

   “I must be better,”
Relyn said. “My left arm is not as strong as my
right.”

   “Manure,” responded
Cessya.

   Nylan offered a wave that was a
half-salute and started across the causeway. His arms still ached.
Would he ever get used to the heavy labor involved with smithing-or
everything in a low-tech culture?

   He crossed the causeway, but stopped
short of the tower door, thinking about the children and their mothers
in the great room. He didn’t want to face company, not when
three of the four children were his, and he’d be obligated to
comment on each, play with each, and possibly even sing a lullaby to
each. He did most of the time, anyway, since he’d finally
made his uneasy peace with himself, if not with Ryba. Her
high-handedness still made him seethe, but that wasn’t his
children’s fault. Still, he wasn’t up to infants
this particular morning.

   Their mothers don’t have any
choice. He pursed his lips, then, after a moment, headed for the
sheltered corner formed between the bathhouse and tower walls. He just
wanted to be alone.

   That wasn’t going to be. As
Nylan neared the corner of the tower wall, he heard the sound of the
lutar. He stopped and listened, recognizing Ayrlyn’s clear
voice.

 

   Oh, Nylan was a smith, and a mighty mage
was he.

   With lightning hammer and an anvil of
nigh forged he.

   From the Westhorns tall came the blades
and bows of the night,

   Their lightning edges gave the angels
forever the height.

 

   Oh, Nylan was a mage, and a mighty smith
was he.

   With rock from the heights and a
lightning blade built he.

   On the Westhorns tall stands a tower of
blackest stone,

   And it holds back the winter’s
snows and storms all alone…

 

   When the notes died, Nylan stepped around
the comer and looked at Ayrlyn, sitting on a stone above the ditching.

   “That’s
awful,” muttered Nylan. “Just awful.”

   “Who was it that told me the
songs that people remember and love to sing are generally
awful?”

   “Those weren’t about
me.”

   “That makes it
different?” asked the healer.

   Nylan eased himself onto the ground. His
feet and legs were tired, too, and it wasn’t even midday.

   “You’re still doing
arrowheads?”

   He nodded. “I wish I could get
the coals hot enough to melt the metal and cast them, but when I try
that it takes green heartwood, and the metal burns, and I
can’t damp it. With plain charcoal, it’s hard
enough just to get the metal hot enough for cutting them. Some of those
arrowheads are going to rip up the people they hit.”

   “Isn’t that the
idea?”

   “Unfortunately, but I still
have trouble with the idea that people only respond to force.”

   “It’s especially
clear on this planet.”

   “It’s clear
everywhere, but in a high-technology setting, it’s easier to
ignore. On the powernet, you see a de-energizer beam, and a mirror
tower, and, poof, the tower’s gone. You don’t see
the demons die. If someone commits a murder, the government carts them
off, and, poof, they’re lase-flashed into dust. Here
it’s obvious and slow. I seem to feel it more and
more.” His eyes turned to Ayrlyn. “I suspect you
do, too.”

   “I get so nauseated I
can’t hold anything down.” Her eyes dropped.
“It seems so… weak. I tell myself it must be in my
mind, but the reaction’s so immediate, so
physical…”

   “It’s more like a
splitting headache for me. The last few times, it’s been so
intense I couldn’t see or move for a moment or two.”

   “Great survival reactions for a
violent culture.” Ayrlyn’s tone was dry.

   “It’s more violent
here because Ryba’s changing things, and change usually is
violent.”

   “We’re part of that
change,” Ayrlyn said. “And there’s not
much way to get around that.”

   After a long silence, Nylan finally
asked, “You’re really not going to sing that song,
are you?”

   “No. I’ve got another
trading run to make.” Ayrlyn laughed. “So I
won’t be singing it. Not now. I’ll teach it to
Istril. It’s simple enough, and she’s actually
getting passable with the simple lutar we built. It doesn’t
have the depth of tone this one does, but it works.”

   “Why are you going to teach her
that song?”

   “Why not?” answered
Ayrlyn. “As many untrustworthy people have said,
‘Trust me.’ ”

   “I guess I have to.”
He stood. “But the song’s awful…
‘a mighty mage’? You have to be joking.”
He paused, then asked, “Is it safe for you to keep
trading?”

   “It’s as safe as
sitting here waiting to be attacked, if I’m careful. We avoid
the larger towns, and I’ve got some ideas where this Lord
Sillek has his garrisons.”

   “I don’t know. I
don’t like it.” He shook his head.

   “I’ll be all
right.”

   “Be careful.”

   “I will.”

   “And try not to sing that song
anywhere.”

   “As these things go,
it’s a good song.”

   “Try not to have it sung for a
while.” Not until I’m dead, preferably, and I hope
that’s a long while, he added to himself.

   “After I teach it to
Istril… we’ll think about it.”

   “Please
don’t.” Nylan frowned. “I’ve
sat around too long. After I get something to drink, I’ve got
to find another lander panel to turn into low-tech weapons of
destruction.”

   “Good luck.” Ayrlyn
rose. “I’m going back down to the loggers.
It’s amazing how experience changes people’s views.
After the cold of the winter, now all they can think about is making
sure there’s enough wood for next winter. That bothered them
more than the short rations.”

   “Food wasn’t that
short. How are we doing now?”

   “Those horses have helped a
lot, and so have our local recruits. There’s more out there
in the forest than we knew.” Ayrlyn shrugged. “For
now, we’re all right, but we’ll need a lot more
coin for supplies-a lot more.”

   Nylan started back uphill, conscious that
Ayrlyn’s eyes stayed on his back for a long time.

 

 

XCII

 

HISSL GLANCES AT the candle, then at the darkness outside. A
lamp in the barracks courtyard casts a faint glow across the wooden
steps that lead up to his quarters.

   He looks at the beaker of wine on the
table, already beginning to turn, for all that he has had the bottle
less than a day, then back out through the window. Beyond the
courtyard, on the far side, the windows of Koric’s room are
dark.

   “Out with his woman,”
snorts Hissl. “He has his power and his woman, and Terek
rides beside Sillek, and I… I wait for an attack that will
never come, not while I am here. Not while Ildyrom knows I am
here.”

   He fills the beaker from the bottle and
drinks fully half what he has poured, wincing as he swallows.

   A sense of unease fills him, and he looks
at the flat glass on the table. Leaving the beaker half-full, he walks
to the doorway.

   A tall figure slips up the stairs,
gracefully, yet not furtively, followed by a second smaller figure.

   Hissl touches his dagger, but does not
draw it as the others approach. Instead, he opens the door and waits.

   The man who stops in the doorway fills
it, and towers over both Hissl and the sturdy armsman in the cloak
behind the stranger.

   “I understand you bid me visit
you, Wizard?” asks the visitor in accented speech. The tall
man wears only a sleeveless tunic in the cool evening, yet his brow is
damp, and his face appears flushed in the indirect light.

   Hissl nods, “I did. What would
a warrior, a true warrior from the Roof of the World, wish from a poor
wizard?”

   “To make our fortune. To keep
the world from being changed. To provide you with fame and
position.” The tall stranger glances toward the table and the
flat glass and the beaker. “Might we come in?”

   “Of course.” Hissl
steps back and offers a deep and ironic bow; “My humble
quarters await you.”

   The tall man takes the high stool and
leans forward, waiting until Hissl seats himself. The cloaked armsman
stands by the door.

   “Why have you taken so
long?” Hissl begins.

    “I beg your pardon, Ser
Wizard, but it has taken somewhat longer to accomplish the
necessary.”

   “The necessary?”

   The stranger smiles coldly. “To
travel here. To raise coins. Such coins, I understand, are necessary.
Gold, after all, is the mother’s milk of ambition, is it
not?”

   “I had not heard it expressed
quite that way,” admits Hissl.

   “You wish position and power. I
offer that. With your help, we can take Westwind-”

   “Westwind?”

   “The Roof of the World. Once we
take Westwind, the Lord of Lornth, I understand, will be most suitably
grateful.” The tall man wipes his forehead again.

   “That is what has been
said,” offers Hissl cautiously.

   “To take Westwind will require
four things: good tactics based on knowledge, an adequate number of
armsmen, a good leader, and a very good wizard.” The stranger
looks straight at Hissl. “You are said to be a very good
wizard. You also must have some coins and contacts which would
supplement our coins in hiring armsmen.”

   “Many would claim what you
propose is impossible. Many have already died.”
Hissl’s eyes stray to the blank glass on the table and then
to the half beaker of wine.

   “Hardly impossible. Difficult,
perhaps, but nothing is impossible.”

   Hissl raises his eyebrows.

   “When we take Westwind, you may
have the lands and title that Lord Sillek offers. I will take Westwind,
and offer immediate and faithful homage to His Lordship. I think he
will accept it,” the stranger says.

   “How can I trust
you?” asks Hissl bluntly. “You ask me to risk much.
Why would you offer me the leopard’s share?”

   The stranger spreads his hands, then
wipes his forehead. “Look. You wear warm clothes. Na- The
armsman wears a cloak. I wear as little as I can, and I am hot. Given
any choice, I would never leave the high peaks. I would die during a
long hot summer in the lowlands.” The man shudders.
“I could not take lowlands if they were forced upon
me.”

   “How would I know
this?”

   The stranger glances at the glass and
then at Hissl. “You know.”

   “Why do you come to me, and not
to Lord Sillek?”

   “Because that would place him,
and me, in a most difficult position. He cannot deal directly with a
man associated with the angels, but he could accept the return of his
lands, especially if that return is accomplished with the help of one
of his loyal wizards.

   “To some degree, I am gambling
that he will accept a man who is a stranger paying homage to him. But
he has said that he will reward the man who overthrows the evil angels
and returns the lands to Lornth. Because you are a loyal subject and of
Lornth, he will certainly reward you.” The stranger smiles
again.

   “How, exactly, would you
accomplish this?”

   “By wizardry, and by unexpected
attacks.” The stranger clears his throat. “Are you
interested?”

   After a time, Hissl nods.
“Yes.”

 

 

XCIII

 

NYLAN BRUSHED AWAY a persistent fly, the kind that hurt when
it bit, as he had learned the painful way, before pulling the alloy
from the forge. He blinked as he turned. Although (he brick forge now
almost reached the roof line, it did not block the direct afternoon sun
that beamed down on his dented, and oft-reflattened and -smoothed
makeshift anvil.

   Huldran took the tongs. Nylan lifted the
hammer once more, ready to hot-cut, wondering if Fierral’s
endless appetite for arrowheads would ever be sated. Then, again, did
any military commander ever have enough ammunition?

   He laughed as he finished the blank.

   “Ser?” asked Huldran.

   “Military commanders never have
enough ammunition.”

   “If you say so, ser.”
Huldran looked puzzled.

   Nylan lifted the hammer again, then
paused as he glimpsed a motion from the corner of his eye. He turned
his head. Ydrall, her dark hair now cut short, ran up the road. Nylan
lowered the hammer, then raised it again and kept cutting until the new
guard actually entered the smithy.

   “Ser?” gasped Ydrall.

   Nylan set the hammer aside, and brushed
back another of the scattered but persistent flies.
“Yes?”

   “Istril and Jaseen, they said
you should come,” she said in Old Anglorat.
“Ellysia is sick, very sick, and the other healer, she is off
trading.”

   “What’s that about
Ellysia?” asked Huldran.

   “She’s sick. Very
sick.” Nylan set down the hammer. “It’s
your turn to do what you can all alone. I’ll send someone up
to hold the tongs for you.”

   Nylan hurried, not quite running, first
to the bathhouse to rid himself of dirt and grime, and then back into
the tower. Still damp, the engineer returned to the tower through the
connecting south door.

   Ryba, carrying Dyliess in the chest pack,
met him at the foot of the stairs. “They called you? Good.
She’s really sick.”

   “I’ll do what I can.
Ayrlyn would be better.” He paused. “Could you
arrange to send a guard up to help Huldran while I’m gone?
Cessya, Weindre, someone like that? She’s trying to keep
forging arrowheads.”

   “I’ll take care of
it.”

   “Thank you.” Nylan
hurried up the stairs.

   Jaseen sat beside the bed. On her bed, a
dozen cubits away, Istril held Dephnay and rocked the cradle holding
Weryl. Ellysia’s face was blotched and pale, and Nylan could
feel the heat welling off her face. Her entire body was drenched, both
in sweat and in an unseen ugly whiteness.

   “What is this?”
muttered Nylan to Jaseen.

   “Massive systemic infection,
I’d guess. We don’t have any diagnostics, or those
fancy nanotech probes.”

   “Please… help me,
ser.” Ellysia’s voice was less than a whisper.

   Nylan took a deep breath, sending his
perceptions out, trying to find a nexus, a center for the infection,
but there seemed to be none. The ugly whiteness oozed from everywhere
within the stricken woman.

   He wished he knew more about medicine and
bodily systems. After a brief respite, he eased his senses out again,
this time concentrating on her circulatory system, trying to strengthen
the minuscule order he found there.

   Had a touch of color returned to
Ellysia’s face? Was there a trace less of the whiteness
around her?

   “Still… so
hot… do something…just look at
me…”

   “He is doing something,
Ellysia. Healers do it with their thoughts,” insisted Istril
from behind Nylan.

   Even as he watched, Nylan could sense the
faint order he had instilled crumble. Again, he forced himself out, to
try to strengthen the ailing woman’s internal order, to build
dikes against the infection.

   His own eyes blurred, and his head ached,
and he looked blindly at the floor, seeing nothing. His knees started
to shake, and he sank down on the planks beside the lander couch,
trying to keep the room from swimming around him, even as he knew that
what he’d done hadn’t been enough.

   He reached out, but it was too late. He
slumped into darkness.

   Someone was applying a damp cloth to his
forehead when he woke. His eyes fixed on the silver hair.

   “Ellysia?” he asked.

   Istril shook her head. “She was
better, but it didn’t last.”

   Nylan started to shake his head, then
stopped. Even that slight motion hurt too much.

   Istril blotted his forehead again.
“You tried to do too much. Even I could feel it.”

   “… wasn’t
enough…”

   “You need to drink
something.” She held a mug.

   Nylan struggled up into a half-sitting
position. His head felt like his own hammers were pounding on it. The
triangle rang for the evening meal, but he concentrated on sipping the
water. By the time he had finished the mug, the hammering inside his
skull had diminished to a dull thumping.

   “Try this.” Istril
handed him a slice of bread.

   Nylan could hear the whimpering from the
cradle. “Take care of Weryl. I’m feeling
better.” He paused. “Dephnay?”

   “Siret has her now. Over
there.”

   As he chewed the thin slice of bread,
Nylan’s eyes jumped to the next alcove, where Siret held two
infants.

   Istril eased Weryl out of the cradle and
to her breast. The whimpering was replaced with sucking, interspersed
with a noise sounding to Nylan suspiciously like a slurp.

   “He likes to eat,”
said the smith.

   “I’ve started giving
him a few mushy things. The solids seem to help him sleep a little
longer, but he still nurses a lot.” Istril looked down at her
son. “Little pig.”

   Some of Nylan’s dizziness
passed, and he eased himself into a sitting position. He noticed that
Ellysia’s bed was vacant.

   “Jaseen moved her. Said she
wanted her in the ground as quick as possible.”

   Nylan nodded.

   “I don’t
understand,” Istril said. “No one got sick all
winter, and it was cold, and we didn’t really have enough to
eat. Why now?”

   “Because it was
cold,” Nylan tried to explain, as much for himself as for
Istril. “It was too cold for mosquitoes, flies, and insects
that carry diseases. We didn’t see any traders. Now, after
the winter, there are a lot more ways to catch things, and Ellysia was
just worn out.”

   He didn’t add that not having
two healers around probably hadn’t helped either, but with
the raging infection that had surged through Ellysia, he wondered
whether even both he and Ayrlyn would have been able to do anything.

   His head turned toward the dark-haired
baby girl Siret held. “She’ll have to be fed. I
don’t suppose she’s had much solid food.”

   “I can nurse Dephnay
some,” volunteered Istril.

   “I can, too,” added
Siret.

   “I suppose I can make it down
to eat.” Nylan eased himself erect.

   “Are you sure?” asked
Istril.

   “I’ll
manage.” Since Nylan finally could move without his head
spinning, he tottered down the single flight of stairs and into the
great room, followed by Siret and Istril, and the three infants.

   “… silver-haired
bunch…”

   “… they look after
him.”

   “Engineer… looks
like shit…”

   “… nearly killed
himself… they said…”

   “… more dead than
alive…” murmured Selitra.

   “I’m not that
bad,” he rasped back. “I can still hear
whispers.”

   Selitra blushed.

   Nylan continued past the lower tables and
slid into his place. He immediately broke off a chunk of bread and
began to chew.

   “You’re still
pale.” Ryba patted Dyliess in the carrypack on her chest.

   Huldran, beside Nylan, nodded.

   “Healing’s harder
than smithing or stone masonry,” Nylan grunted after chewing
the first mouthful of bread.

   “Ooo…”
interjected Dyliess.

   “I’m glad you
agree,” said Nylan. “A daughter’s opinion
is important.”

   “Oooo…”

   Huldran grinned.

   Nylan finally took a chunk of the
sauce-covered unknown meat. He barely had to use his knife. The brown
sauce wasn’t the burning dish that Blynnal called burkha, but
a cinnamon mint, hot but not too hot. It also concealed whatever the
meat was, and that, Nylan decided, was fine with him. He broke off
another chunk of bread and dipped the end into the sauce, then took a
sip of the cool tealike drink that was also new, and less bitter than
the hot bark-and-root tea of winter had been.

   When Nylan stopped and took a last sip of
the cool tea, Ryba slipped Dyliess out of the carrypack.

   “Would you hold her for a
bit?”

   Nylan extended his arms.

   “Oooooo…”

   “I’m glad you agree,
daughter.”

   Ryba stood, looking imperious. Nylan
cradled Dyliess in his right arm.

   “Ellysia died,” Ryba
began. “You all know that. You may be the best blades on the
face of the world, but that doesn’t make you immune to
disease. The engineer built a bathhouse. I expect you all to use
it-regularly. Cleanliness is about the only defense against disease we
have left.” The marshal turned to Blynnal and Kadran.
“Everything you prepare is to be washed, cooked at least to a
dull pink if it’s meat, and all the way through if
it’s one of those wild pigs or a chicken. The same with
eggs.”

   “…
tastes… terrible…” came a murmur.

   “Do you want to have
good-tasting food and die?” snapped Ryba. “There
was a reason for all those primitive dietary laws we’ve
abandoned. Just as there’s a reason why the engineer nearly
killed himself to build that bathhouse.” Her eyes raked the
group, and the silence was absolute, except for a faint infant whimper
from the second table.

   Nylan patted Dyliess on the back and
chewed another chunk of bread as Ryba took her seat.

 

 

XCIV

 

“IT’S REALLY A pity, you know,”
Sillek says conversationally, as he bends forward in the saddle for a
moment to stretch. “The harbor at Rulyarth is far better than
the one at Armat. But the Suthyans are blessed with three decent
harbors, and so they make the middle one their main trading
point.”

   “Devalonia is icebound a third
of the year,” points out Gethen.

   “So is Armat. That’s
my point. We could do wonders-”

   “Let’s not talk about
wonders, Lord Sillek, not until we have Rulyarth and its harbor and can
hold it.” Gethen coughs and clears his throat, glancing up
through the mist that is not quite rain toward the clouds that
seemingly shift endlessly and yet do not move at all. “I hate
this rain.”

   Sillek nods behind them. “Not
so much as my poor wizards.”

   A messenger gallops toward them from the
vanguard, and the two men wait.

   “Where the road narrows and
goes through a gap in the hills ahead, there is a force drawn up behind
a barricade of stone.”

   Gethen raises his eyebrows.
“Plans for the harbor?”

   Sillek shakes his head. “I
defer to the experience of wisdom and age.”

   The messenger glances from one lord to
the other.

   “Have the van halt.
We’ll be there presently,” orders Sillek.

   As the messenger rides north, Gethen
asks, “Have you any miraculous plans?”

   “Not yet. I have an
idea.”

   “I hope it’s as
effective as the last one.”

   “So do I.” Sillek
gestures toward the chief armsman. “Rimmur! Have the force
hold here in readiness. There’s a Suthyan force behind those
stones by the hill ahead.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   The two lords ride until they reach the
van, and the rolling downhill stretch below the mounted foreguard.
There Sillek reins up and studies the terrain. So does Gethen.

   In time, he motions to Gethen, and the
two ride aside from the others.

   “They don’t have more
than fourscore there-mostly foot levies,” points out Sillek.
“The hill on the north side of the road is rocky, and
they’ve only a handful of troops there. If we take the
wizards, we should be able to use their firebolts and take the crest.
From there, we can roll down rocks on them-rocks and
firebolts.”

   “What if they reinforce the
hilltop?” asks Gethen.

   “The hillside is exposed. You
have our archers fire at them. We can get rid of their hill guards
before they can send others up the hillside. Then it will be too
late.” Sillek smiles.

   “They’ll start
sending reinforcements as soon as they see what you’re
doing.”

   “But they won’t see
that. You’re going to draw up our forces just about a double
bow-shot length from them and go through elaborate preparations for an
attack.”

   Gethen nods, then asks, “What
if they attack?”

   “Can you deploy the forces to
kill them without losing many?”

   “With more than ten times their
forces and archers, I can manage that.” Gethen smiles grimly.
“I would still point out that you have a nasty turn of
thought, Lord Sillek.”

   “That’s because I
dislike fighting.”

   “So did I. I still
do.”

   Both men shake their heads before Gethen
turns his mount toward the main body of troops.

 

 

XCV

 

THIN HAZY CLOUDS covered the blue-green sky, not totally
blocking the sky, but reducing the sun’s glare and direct
heat. The usual breeze was absent, and the meadow grasses hung limp and
still. The lack of wind left the early afternoon almost hotter than if
there had been a breeze and no clouds.

   Nylan was crossing the causeway, on the
way back to the smithy, when the outer triangle, located in the small
brick tower recently completed on the top of the ridge, rang three
times. He had scarcely taken two steps when the triplet clanged again.

   Across the fields, guards dropped warrens
and hoes and scrambled toward the tower, fastening blades in place. As
Nylan watched, two duty guards-Cessya and Nistayna, one of the older
new guards-rode up toward the ridge. Before he could reach the smithy,
Istril had ridden down past Nylan, leading three saddled mounts, taken
immediately by Weindre, Kyseen, and Kadran, who all rode toward the
watch tower.

   Istril frowned, but did not ride out with
the three, instead spurring her mount back toward the stables, as
Ydrall rode down leading three more mounts.

   Nylan nodded. Fierral, or someone, had
figured out how to get the kitchen and the field details into the
saddle quickly. They were still fortunate that the timber detail was
involved in expanding the stables, rather than working down in the
woods.

   Ydrall’s mounts included
Ryba’s roan, Fierral’s mount, and a horse taken by
Berlis.

   The engineer had just reached the front
of the smithy when Istril rode back down with another set of three
mounts. Behind her and the riderless three mounts rode Llyselle,
Jaseen, and Murkassa. Murkassa’s face was pale.

   At the tower, three more guards were
waiting-Saryn, Selitra, and Hryessa.

   “Move it!”
Saryn’s voice carried as she vaulted into the saddle, leading
the six riders up toward the watch tower.

   Nylan paused as Istril turned and headed
her mount back uphill. He waited outside the smithy for the silent
silver-haired guard.

   She reined up and looked down.
“With Ellysia dead, until the little ones are old enough to
eat solid food, I’m ordered away from battle, unless
attackers reach the tower itself.” Istril glanced toward the
tower. “Siret has them now.”

   “You don’t have to
explain to me, Istril. You’ve put your life on the line
plenty.” Nylan gave the silver-haired guard a ragged smile.
“You don’t see me charging out there,
either.”

   “That’s different. If
anything happens to you…” She turned her mount
uphill. “I’ve got to get more mounts
ready.”

   Nylan watched her for a moment before
entering the smithy. Huldran was forging arrowheads, letting Desain,
one of the newer guards, hold the tongs.

   “Over now. Easy.”

   When the triangle rang a third time,
Nylan looked at Huldran. “We’d better get moving,
too.”

   “The forge?”

   “Let it burn.” Nylan
turned to Desain. “Find your blade, and then go down to the
tower. Listen to Istril or the guards there.”

   At her puzzled look, Nylan repeated
himself in Old Anglorat to her before turning to Huldran.
“We’ll head up to the stables.”

   They didn’t have to go that
far. Istril met them with two more mounts at the opening to the small
canyon where Nylan climbed onto a brown mare he’d never
ridden before. She seemed responsive enough and not ready to throw him
every which way.

   “Take care, ser,”
Istril said. “Don’t lead the charge.”

   “I won’t.”

   “That one cares for you,
ser,” Huldran said quietly.

   “I know. She’s good,
and she works hard.” He glanced toward the tower, where
Fierral and Ryba, already mounted, waited for them just beyond the end
of the causeway. “I worry about her.”

   “You worry about a lot of
people.”

   “One of my undoings,”
quipped Nylan.

   “Come on!” Ryba waved
a blade, and Nylan urged the mare into a trot, wincing at the jolting,
and then feeling guilty as he thought about how much harder that kind
of jolting had to be on Ryba or Istril.

   As the four rode two by two across the
narrow bridge over the tower outfall drainageway, Ryba said,
“The bridge is solid, and the paved part feels that way,
too.”

   “I wish we had time to pave
more.”

   “Once we get the new ones more
settled, maybe we can have a stone-paving crew. It’s good
exercise.”

   “That’s
true,” agreed Fierral, “but let’s worry
about what’s over the hill right now. There’s
another group of mounted brigands coming up the ridge.
They’re wearing purple, but it’s not that light
purple of Lornth. It’s darker.”

   “Darker purple? Who could that
be?” asked Nylan.

   “Does it matter?”
retorted Ryba. “How many?”

   “A little less than
twoscore.”

   “Any archers or bows?”

   “No. But this group carries
round shields that look pretty thick.”

   “Arrows are faster than
shields,” Ryba pointed out.

   “We don’t even have a
score of guards up there.”

   “Use the arrows
first,” said Ryba.

   “I’d planned
to.” Fierral glanced at Nylan. “Now that we have
some, I told Saryn to make them count, but not to worry if a few shafts
fall by the way so long as most of them hit something.”

   When Nylan looked back toward the tower,
he saw one more rider, Ayrlyn, following, with several large
saddlebags. Medical supplies, such as they had remaining, he guessed.

   More than a dozen guards, all mounted and
bearing bows and blades, forged by Nylan, waited at the ridge top,
facing downhill and to the west.

   “They seem to be waiting for
us,” Saryn announced. “But they can wait a long
time. I’d rather hold the heights.”

   “Idiots,” murmured
Ryba as she saw the darker purple banners drawn up on the flat below
the ridge. “They should have just attacked.” Beyond
the banners, almost out of sight, were tethered what appeared to be
packhorses.

   “Don’t put down male
chivalry too much,” cautioned Nylan. “If they
hadn’t waited to set up a formal battle, it would have been a
mess.”

   Both Fierral and Ryba looked sideways at
the engineer.

   “You keep up the direct and
brutal business,” added Nylan, “and
they’ll do the same. At least, after word gets around, they
will.”

   Huldran nodded minutely, although the
gesture was lost on the other two women.

   The ridge top darkened as a larger and
more substantial cloud buried in the high haze drifted across the sun.

   “They’re out of bow
shot.”

   “We need to make them come to
us,” Ryba said.

   “Do they want to fight at
all?” asked Nylan.

   “They won’t admit
that. First, they’ll make some statement about how they come
in peace to reclaim whatever they think is theirs. Then will come
threats, and then they’ll ride downhill and charge back
up.”

   Nylan said nothing, instead trying to
send his perceptions out to see if the apparent attackers were more
deceptive than they appeared. As he swayed in the saddle, straining at
the limits of his abilities, he could sense that matters were not quite
as they seemed.

   “Hold it,” he gasped,
raising a hand.

   “What?” said Ryba
almost impatiently.

   “This one’s a setup,
I think,” Nylan explained. “See the trees to the
right, where they bulge out on the lower side?”

   “Someone there?”
asked Fierral.

   “Archers, it feels like.
I’ll bet their mounts are in with the packhorses down there.
The woods are too steep there for horses.”

   “That means ten to fifteen
archers.” Ryba nodded. “So they’ll come a
quarter of the way up the hill under a white banner, make an impossible
demand, and as they turn, we’ll get sleeted with a cross
fire?”

   The engineer shrugged. “I
don’t know tactics, but I’d guess something like
that.”

   Ryba studied the ground, then looked
downhill and out at the flat where a rider was lifting up a white
banner. “They don’t want to give us much time,
either.”

   “Can’t imagine
why…” muttered Nylan under his breath, wondering
if the guards’ reputation for instant and unforgiving action
had already crossed most of Candar by rumor.

   “How far will their arrows
go-uphill?” asked Ryba.

   “We could only descend another
four hundred cubits or so before we’d be at the outer range,
probably,” hazarded Fierral.

   “Fine. We’ll go down
to the edge of that range and wait.”

   “And?” asked Fierral.

   “We’ll insult their
manhood. That might get them mad enough to charge after us,”
said Ryba.

   “They can’t be that
stupid,” pointed out Fierral.

   “Probably not. But
there’s nothing that says we have to fight. We ride away. If
they want to fight, they’ll either have to bring up their
archers out of the woods-or leave them behind.” The marshal
smiled coldly.

   “They won’t leave
them, not after bringing them all the way up here.”

   “No, they won’t. But
our bows have a longer effective range than theirs, because
they’re your specials, and because the height should give us
a little more impact, and they won’t expect that power from
mounted archers.” Ryba laughed. “If
they’re better, we retreat to the rocks by the watchtower.
That covers the road, and they’ll have trouble.”

   “What if they
retreat?” asked Nylan.

   “They
won’t.”

   As the rider bearing the limp white
banner rode uphill, followed by three riders, Ryba, Fierral, and Berlis
rode down the ridge more slowly, drawing up well short of the midpoint
between the two forces.

   The leaders of the purple forces stopped
exactly where predicted and waited.

   Ryba, Fierral, and Cessya waited.

   Nearly half a kay separated the two
groups.

   Finally, the man bearing the
banner-alone-rode up the hill.

   Drawing on his senses, Nylan strained to
hear, but could only catch the general sense of the conversation, and
the scathing scorn in Ryba’s voice.

   The central rider of the
attackers’ leaders raised a gloved fist. Ryba’s
laugh echoed down the hill. Then the three Westwind riders turned their
backs on the others, and rode back up the hill.

   Several arrows arched out of the lower
forest, but fell short. Neither Ryba nor Fierral even looked back.

   After a time, the armsman with the banner
rode back down to the three others.

   “They’ve got a
problem.” Ryba’s voice contained a hint of laughter
as she reined up before the Westwind guards. “They were sent
to rout us out. If they go back, they won’t be in good
standing. If they’ve got any brains, the last thing
they’re going to want to do is ride up the ridge…
but in this kind of culture, if you don’t take the fight to
the enemy you’re a coward, and that’s either a
death sentence or an endless round of duels and hassles.”

   “Are you sure?”

   “What did they say?”
asked Cessya.

   “Just about what
you’d expect. They claimed that we had insulted the
sovereignty of Gallos by enticing various inhabitants to join us. He
couldn’t even bring himself to say
‘women.’ ”

   “What now?” asked
Fierral.

   “We wait.”

   Finally, a trumpet sounded.

   “They’ll take the
horses up to the archers, and have them ride to about where we waited
for them,” said Ryba. “That would give them enough
bow range to drop arrows on the ridge top here, and that’s
supposedly beyond the range of horse-carried bows. Don’t do
anything-just watch-until all the archers are well within range. Then
hit them with everything we can fire.

   “The horse will charge at that
point, and we’ll start potting horsemen then. Some will get
through, but try to make it as few as possible.”

   Nylan looked over at Ayrlyn, who had just
reined up beside him, and they exchanged glances. The healer nodded
sadly.

   As Ryba had predicted, several armsmen
led the dozen mounts to the once-hidden archers. The archers mounted
and began to ride farther uphill. At the same time, the main mounted
force began to walk up the center of the ridge, slowly.

   As the archers dismounted, Ryba said
quietly, “Fire. Try to make each shaft count.”

   Since he had no bow, Nylan watched. So
did Ayrlyn.

   Within moments, half the Gallosian
archers were down or wounded.

   The horn sounded, and the nearly rwoscore
mounted armsmen urged their mounts uphill.

   “You three at the end, keep
working on the archers. The rest of you take the mounted!”
snapped Ryba.

   Nylan touched his blade, then drew it,
waiting as the Gallosians rumbled up the gentle, but barren, slope.

   Despite the shields, the purple-clad
armsmen began to fall more than two hundred cubits from the Westwind
forces.

   Nylan couldn’t see how many
made it to the ridge top, because two of them were headed toward the
left end of the Westwind line, where he and Ayrlyn had reined up.

   The engineer swallowed, then urged the
mare forward, hoping he could stay in the saddle, but knowing that he
would be dead meat if he sat rock-still.

   The oncoming rider carried a long blade,
not so long as the monster Gerlich used, but long enough that Nylan
felt his black blade was less than a toothpick in comparison.

   All the engineer could do was to slide
the other’s blade past him, then tighten his knees and try to
turn the mare.

   His senses, rather than his eyes, warned
him of the next Gallosian, and Nylan just slashed, nearly wildly, but
successfully enough, his arm propelled by something akin to pure
terror, to drive the other’s blade down almost into the
Gallosian’s mount.

   Struggling to recover control of both
mount and blade, Nylan plunged after the two as they bore down on
Ayrlyn. She had the first, on her left, held off, but the second raised
his blade on her unprotected side.

   Nylan, with few options, hurled the black
blade, again reaching for the air, the sense of smooth flow.

   The Gallosian crumpled across his mount,
Nylan’s blade through his body.

   Nylan winced, his head splitting as
though his blade had cloven his own skull, and he clutched the
mare’s mane with his now-free sword hand, eyes filled with
blinding white and unable to see.

   He blinked, slowly able to catch glimpses
of the ground ahead and the horse bearing the dead Gallosian. As the
engineer trotted after the dead Gallosian, and his blade, his vision
slowly returned, but his head continued to feel as though someone had
driven an arrow or a blade through his skull. Each time he opened his
eyes, knives stabbed through them. A quick look back reassured him that
the guards had matters in hand, and he could see that Saryn had come to
Ayrlyn’s aid, and dispatched the other attacker.

   Nylan rode nearly a kay before managing
to catch and calm the skittish horse that still bore the dead man. By
the time he recovered his blade and rode back, there were no Gallosians
left standing. Two of the archers had reclaimed mounts and rode
furiously down the lower part of the ridge, followed by a single
armsman.

   Nearly a dozen horses lay across the
battle site.

   Fierral looked sourly at Nylan as he rode
up. “We’ll need more arrows.” Her eyes
took in the dead body. “Yours?”

   The engineer nodded.

   “You must be surprising with
that blade.”

   “He threw it through
him,” Ayrlyn said tiredly, rubbing her forehead, as she stood
by her mount and began to unload medical supplies.

   “Through him?”

   Fierral rode closer and lifted the corpse
half off the saddle, then levered the inert form out of the saddle. The
corpse hit the ground with a dull thud. “You’re as
bad as the marshal.”

   Except she doesn’t get
splitting headaches that almost knock her off her horse, thought Nylan.

   Murkassa rode up, holding her arm, and
slowly dismounted.

   Ayrlyn looked at the slash on the newer
guard’s arm. “It’s only a little more
than skin-deep. Get that grime washed out good, and then see me or the
engineer.” She looked toward Nylan.

   He nodded. “That I can
do.”

   Ryba rode over, shaking her head.

   “What?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “I just told her to stay back.
She shouldn’t have been in the front row. Ryllya,
she’s dead,” added the marshal. “The
newest ones aren’t ready for this.”

   Ayrlyn walked across the rocky ground to
where Hryessa looked down at a handsome brown-bearded man. Blood welled
out from his left shoulder and above the breastplate.

   “He’s dying, and I
killed him.”

   “He would have killed
you,” Ayrlyn said gently. “That’s what
happens when people fight. They could have left us alone. They
didn’t.”

   “Lyntar…
said… beautiful women… golds… there
for the taking…” The brown-bearded man forced a
smile, then tried to hold back a cough. His face paled, and the
strangled cough brought up only blood-bright
blood.“… wrong… he was…
about the taking…” He looked at Hryessa.
“So slender… like…
dagger…” His lips moved, but no sound issued
forth, and his eyes glazed over.

   Beyond the dead Gallosian was
another… of more than a score strewn across the slope.

   “Nistayna!” ordered
Ryba. “You and Cessya bring back the carts. We’ve
got a lot of hauling to do.”

   “I don’t understand
it,” Ayrlyn said. “They just kept coming. Half of
them were dead before they even reached us. It was as though they
couldn’t believe they were being killed.”

   “They
couldn’t,” snapped Fierral. “In their
mind-set, women can’t even try to kill, except maybe to
protect their children. These idiots’d rather give up their
lives than their beliefs.”

   “That just might change after a
few battles,” Nylan said heavily from his saddle.
“You’ll be devils, and they’ll try to
kill you without mercy.”

   “There are rumors
everywhere,” said Ryba, reining the roan up beside Nylan.
“We’re angels; we’re devil women.
We’re beautiful; we’re hags. The rumors
don’t matter. What matters is that we’ve got to get
better. Every guard has to handle a bow and blade as well as Fierral or
Istril. It would help if they could also throw a blade like you can
because things are just going to get worse.” Ryba surveyed
the battlefield, where women in leathers stripped and stacked bodies
and loot, where other women collected horses.

   The creaking from below the ridge
indicated that the carts were on the way to recover the assorted
leavings and loot.

   “With each success and each new
rumor,” said Ryba, “we’ll get more women
trying to escape, and more armsmen and brigands looking for easy loot
because they can’t believe we’re real. Then, as
Nylan says, one day, they’ll believe it, and someone will
head up here with a real army, and we’d better be ready.
We’ll need more arrowheads.”

   “More arrowheads,”
groaned Nylan.

   “It’s better than
having to meet them blade to blade, and, speaking of blades, can you
make any more?”

   Nylan looked at Ryba.
“We’re having enough trouble with arrowheads. I
made those blades out of structural braces, and I barely could handle
those with a laser. All that charcoal I’ve got up
wouldn’t warm one lousy brace.”

   “We need something.”

   “I’ll see about
reworking some of the locals’ blades-the terrible
ones,” said the engineer-smith, “if you
don’t mind the potential revenue loss.”

   “Good.” Ryba paused,
then added, “At least all this loot will help us get supplies
for winter.”

   Nylan and Ayrlyn rubbed their foreheads
and exchanged glances.

 

 

XCVI

 

AFTER THE LONG afternoon of cleaning up carnage and wounds,
and building a cairn for Ryllya, the guard he’d never known,
and an evening meal filled with quiet and exhaustion, Nylan sat in the
rocking chair, holding Dyliess. Ryba lay in the darkness, silent on her
separate couch.

   For whatever reason, rocking his daughter
in the gloom of the tower helped his throbbing head, more than the
darkness or the hot and welcome meal prepared by Blynnal.

  … and who will rock you to
sleep?

   Your daddy will rock and sing you a song,
There’s only a cradle and nothing is wrong. When the sun has
set and the stars are so high, I’ll rock you and hold you
‘til morning is nigh…

   By the time Dyliess dropped off and he
had slipped into his separate couch bed, the throbbing inside his skull
had subsided to a dull echo of the former hammering.

   After a quick flash of light through the
window, the evening breeze brought the rumble of distant thunder over
the western peaks and then the dampness of air that had held rain.
Perhaps the rain would wash the sense and stench of killing off the
Roof of the World. Perhaps sleep would help.

   Again, not for the first time, nor for
the last, Nylan wondered why so many people respected only force. He
tried not to sigh.

    “The killing is hard on
you,” Ryba observed.

   “You’ve
noticed.” He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice,
knowing he failed.

   “You’re good for
about one killing a battle, aren’t you?” asked Ryba
quietly. ‘That makes it hard when people are riding around
with blades.“

   “Very hard, especially when
you’re on a horse and can’t see.” Nylan
stretched. His legs and arms were sore, from some combination of riding
and smithing, neither of which he did terribly efficiently, he feared.

   “Why?”

   “With every killing,
there’s a whiteness that fills the field, or the local net,
or whatever you want to call it. It goes through me like an invisible
but very sharp dagger.”

   “This
place…” said Ryba heavily. “The more we
succeed, the more everyone wants to destroy us.”

   “That’s true
everywhere.” Nylan yawned. “It’s just
more obvious here.”

   “We’re going to get
more women, and that means we’ll need more weapons.”

   “More arrowheads,”
groaned Nylan, trying to put aside the thought of more deaths.

   “Can’t you make any
more blades? We need both. I’d really like each guard to have
two blades. That way they could throw one if they had to. The more
standoff capability we have…”

   Nylan wanted to laugh at the thought of a
throwing blade being a standoff capability. How far they’d
fallen from lasers and de-energizer beams, although the weapons laser
still remained mostly intact. “We’re having enough
trouble with arrowheads.”

   “We need something.”

   “I told you. I’ll try
to rework some of the captured blades-the terrible ones,”
said the engineer-smith, “that’s if you
don’t mind losing some coins.”

   “After today, we have enough
coins and blades that you can have a few of them to work with.
I’m sure you can figure out something.”

   Nylan yawned again, wishing he were that
certain.

 

 

XCVII

 

ZELDYAN RISES FROM the scrolls that are stacked on the desk by
the window and turns to greet her visitor. “Lady Ellindyja, I
must apologize for a certain disarray.” Despite her apology,
every blond hair is in place under the silver hair-band inlaid with
malachite, and her green tunic and trousers are spotless.

   “
‘Disarray’ is not a term I would ever think of
applying to you, dear,” responds Ellindyja. “You
are always prepared.”

   “I thank you for your kindness,
and I am most happy to see you. Is there anything in particular to
which I owe this happy visit?”

   “I understand that a force of
Gallosians attacked the Roof of the World an eight-day ago,”
begins the lady Ellindyja. “You, of course, as Lady of
Lornth, would know more of this than I. Perhaps you could enlighten
me?”

   “I would be more than pleased
to share what little knowledge I have, although you doubtless have many
more sources than do I.” Zeldyan picks up the small bell off
the table and rings it. “Please, do be seated, and I will
have cool, sweetened green juice sent up.” She gestures to
the largest armchair in the sitting room.

   “I so appreciate your
kindness.” Ellindyja smiles and eases her bulk into the large
chair. Her eyes cross the room-to the cradle. “You are sure
that ringing will not wake young Nesslek?”

   “If it should wake him, I will
hold him.” Zeldyan smiles. “Children, I have seen,
grow so quickly, and I am not yet tired of enjoying him while my
comfort means much to him.”

   “They do grow quickly, and you
are to be commended for your care and concern.”

   A stocky serving maid appears and bows to
Zeldyan. “Yes, my lady?”

   “A carafe of the cold fresh
green juice, with honey, and some of the fresh pastries, if you
please.”

   The dark-haired maid nods and slips out
through the door.

   Zeldyan steps toward the cradle and
studies her sleeping son, then takes the straight-backed chair across
the low table from her consort’s mother. “I
received a report from one of the wizards-he sent a report directly to
Lord Sillek as well-that a Gallosian force attempted to attack the
angel outpost on the Roof of the World. The Gallosians lost many
armsmen. The wizard was uncertain if any of the angels were killed, but
some were wounded.”

   “That must have been Hissl. He
is never certain about anything. Except his own importance,”
Ellindyja adds.

   “Still… wizards,
uncertain or not, have a usefulness.”

   “This…
incursion… has a disturbing flavor. I was also under the
impression that a dispatch arrived from Gallos, something about the
inability of Lornth to control the depredations of its
inhabitants?” Ellindyja smiles sweetly.

   “Yes,” replies
Zeldyan. “As you doubtless know from the dispatch, though it
was addressed to Lord Sillek, Lord Karthanos expressed his regrets. He
wrote that he felt compelled to take action because the situation on
the Roof of the World had become most distressing to his holders. Lord
Karthanos expressed the hope that Lord Sillek, once he returned to
Lornth, would redress the situation on the Roof of the World.”

   “I had gathered it was
something like that.”

   The door opens, and the serving maid
returns with a silver tray, on which there are a crystal carafe filled
with a green liquid, two empty goblets, and a pale green china plate on
which are heaped a number of miniature pastries. The maid sets the tray
on the table, bows, and retreats, closing the door behind her.

   Zeldyan pours two goblets and waits for
Ellindyja to take one.

   The older woman also takes a small pastry
and eats it delicately. “These are good. I recall something
of the like from when I visited your mother-a family recipe,
perhaps?”

   “I learned a great deal from
Mother, for which I am most thankful.” Zeldyan takes a sip of
her green juice, holding the goblet and waiting.

   “You can see, I am
sure,” the lady Ellindyja finally continues, “the
difficulty this situation has raised.”

   “Yes. It is rather clear. The
male holders on each side of the Westhorns are outraged that a group of
women has created what appears to be an independent land. If Sillek
refuses to conquer them, then he faces dissatisfaction here in Lornth,
and possible greater loss of face and lands if Lord Karthanos takes
matters even more into his hands.” Zeldyan sets the goblet
down and smiles. “Of course, Karthanos was unsuccessful, and
that may be why he is requesting, so politely and indirectly, that Lord
Sillek put his lands in order.”

   Ellindyja sips the green juice, blots her
lips with a silksheen cloth, and replaces the goblet on the table.
“You are suggesting something, my dear, but I am afraid that
suggestion is not as clear its it might be.”

   Zeldyan shrugs. “Lord Karthanos
is known for his cunning. Perhaps he has judged that this would-be
country of women cannot be taken.”

   “That would seem unlikely. A
mere handful of women?”

   “Unlikely it might be, but were
it so, and were my lord to squander his funds and forces upon the Roof
of the World, then what would there be to keep Karthanos from
acknowledging these women and then expanding his domains into such
areas as Middlevale or eastern Cerlyn?”

   Lady Ellindyja purses her lips, but for a
sole moment. “You are dubious about the skills and valor of
your lord?”

   “I love, honor, and respect my
lord, and that love, honor, and respect demand that I offer him my best
judgment. No one stood against the eagles of the demons when they
landed ages ago in Analeria, and I would rather my lord be cautious
than suffer the fate of Lord Pertelo.”

   “Such caution would be wise,
save that such caution would have all holders on both sides of the
Westhorns clamoring for your lord’s early departure from his
stewardship.”

   “You may well be right, my
lady, for most men are ever fools, and those who are not, such as my
lord, are often captives of the multitudes,” Zeldyan
acknowledges.

   “Lord Sillek must make his own
destiny, and reclaim his patrimony. Would you have him do
otherwise?” Ellindyja holds the glass, but does not sip from
it.

   “My lord must follow his
destiny, as you have pointed out so clearly,” answers
Zeldyan. “Do have another pastry.”

   “One more,” agrees
the lady Ellindyja.

   “Some more juice?”

   “I think not, but you are so
kind.”

   Zeldyan pours herself another half
goblet, and her eyes flick, ever so briefly, to the cradle.

 

 

XCVIII

 

A FAINT LINE of sunlight crossed Nylan’s face as he
loaded more charcoal onto the forge coals started from wood. The basic
planks for the smithy roof were in place, set almost clinker fashion,
but in one or two places, thin beams of sunlight shone through.

   There were no shutters, nor doors, nor a
real floor. The only reason he had a roof was that Ryba and Fierral
needed weapons, and that meant the ability to forge in poor weather.
Would Westwind always rest on weapons?

   The engineer-smith picked up the heavy
iron/steel blade and extended his senses, studying the metal, following
the grain. His lips curled as he felt the weakness that ran up what he
would have called the spine of the blade. Not only did he not know
smithing-he didn’t even know the right terms.

   He had no real tools, no real idea of how
iron should be forged-just a basic understanding that a sort of waffled
forging and reforging of steel and iron, combined with a quench that he
developed more by feel than by physics, might improve the local product.

   He laughed. Might improve? It also might
turn a dull and serviceable crowbar of a weapon into scrap metal. But
the marshal of Westwind needed better weapons for the new recruits,
blades sharper, tougher, and lighter than the huge metal bars favored
by the locals.

   There was another difference. The locals
seemed to want to beat each other to death. It almost seemed that the
equivalent of cavalry sabres were looked down on, as though it were a
badge of honor to carry the biggest and heaviest weapon possible. Ryba
just wanted to find the quickest and most efficient way to win.

   “Are you ready for
this?” he asked Huldran as he set the blade aside on the
brick forge shelf to the right side of the forge proper. He picked up a
thin strip of alloy with the tongs, setting it on the coals.

   Huldran pumped the bellows slowly and
without comment. The alloy began to heat, more slowly than the local
blade would. After a bit, Nylan eased the blade into the coals, almost
next to the alloy, and waited for it to heat.

   Once the crude steel blade had heated, he
laid it on his makeshift forge. Then he eased the hot alloy strip on
top of the cherry-red blade, and lifted the hammer, his senses extended
as he tried to feel how he would meld the two.

   Three blows later, he knew he was in
trouble. The alloy went right into the local steel like a chisel
through wood.

   “Frigging alloy,” he
mumbled under his breath. “Of course it wouldn’t
work the simple way.”

   “It never does, ser,”
pointed out Huldran.

   “Unfortunately.”

   It took Nylan longer to separate the
barely hammered pieces than it had to half join them.

   “If that doesn’t
work…” He walked to the unfinished Smithy door.
High cumulus clouds-with dark centers that promised lightning, thunder,
and high winds-filled the sky. Too bad he couldn’t harness
lightning bolts into an electric furnace. “Right!”
he snorted as he walked back to the forge.

   What if he flattened the alloy into a
paper-thin sheet and then smoothed the local steel over it? Then if he
heated the sheets and folded them back and flattened them together-
always with a layer of the alloy on the bottom-would that work?

   He set aside the mangled blade and used
the tongs to put the alloy into the forge.

   “You think you can make this
work?” asked Huldran, pumping the bellows, sweat running out
of her short blond hair.

   “For a while. We’re
just about out of the thin alloy sheets from partitions and the like. I
don’t have the tools to take apart the lander hulls. If I had
the tools and talents of a good local smith, I might be able to, but I
don’t.”

   After a time, he eased the alloy from the
forge and began to hammer it into a flatter sheet. The alloy lost heat
quickly, and he had to reheat it before he was even a third of the way
down the narrow strip.

   It took until mid-morning just for Nylan
to flatten the alloy and the blade, and to hammer-fold the two together
once. His arms ached. His shoulders were sore; his hands were tired;
and he understood why, the old pictures showed smiths as men with arms
like tree trunks.

   He eased the once-folded metal onto the
side of the forge.

   “Now what?” asked
Huldran.

   “We take a break. Then we go
back to work.”

   “You mean this works?”

   “Oh, it’s working.
It’s slow, like everything in a low-tech culture.”
Nylan stood and stretched, trying not to wince too much. “Why
do you think that even a terrible blade is worth almost a
gold?” He took a deep breath and lifted and lowered his
shoulders, trying to loosen them. “I read somewhere that a
good smith might have to fold and refold iron and steel together dozens
of times to get the right kind of blade.”

   “Dozens of times. It took half
the morning for once.”

   “That’s what I
meant,” pointed out Nylan dryly. “Lasers and lots
of energy make that sort of thing a lot easier. Now all we’ve
got is charcoal and hammers and muscles. It takes longer.” He
walked toward the tower. After a moment, Huldran followed.

 

 

XCIX

 

SILLEK STANDS ON the pier. Gethen stands several paces inshore
of him. The armsmen at the foot of the old pier hold torches, but the
light barely carries to where the Lord of Lornth stands a dozen cubits
out on the rickety structure that sways with the incoming tide. The
sound of surf rises beyond the bay. The harbor is empty. So are the
warehouses that held goods, though a handful still hold grain.

   “Only because they
couldn’t get enough ships in,” Sillek says to
himself.

   “What did you say?”
asks Gethen.

   “Nothing. Nothing.”

   “You thought this might happen,
didn’t you, Sillek?” Gethen looks down at the dark
water. “That the traders would pull out without a
fight?”

   Below them bobs a waterlogged chunk of
wood, and beyond that some unidentifiable bit of moss-covered and slimy
debris. The cold air coming off the Northern Ocean smells of salt with
a hint of rotten fish and ocean-damp wood.

   “I hoped they would. Wars cost
money, and they’ve always kept Rulyarth as a place to bleed,
not to fight over. This was the easy part. Now it gets
harder.” Sillek looks into the darkness.
“We’ll have to bribe the independent traders, with
something, and rebuild at least one of the piers. And probably
reinstate the barges on the lower section below the rapids.”

   “You’ll get some
cargoes. My wines alone-”

   “Your wines will likely save
us, Gethen. For that I am grateful.”

   “I’ve been tired of
seeing the Suthyans eat up the profits with their port
charges.” Gethen kicks the rotten wood of the pier, and a
chunk flies out into the dark water of the harbor.

   “We’ll need some
charges, or we won’t have a port,” cautions Sillek.
“We’ve got some hungry people here who are going to
be very unhappy. And then there’s Ildyrom.”

    “He hasn’t moved on
Clynya.”

   “No, but that ties up more
armsmen and a wizard. I really can’t afford another campaign
this year. That’s why that business with Karthanos bothers
me. I could care less about the middle of the Westhorns. The land
doesn’t feed my people, and there aren’t any
precious metals there. But because a bunch of women took it over,
it’s going to create a real problem with a lot of the
traditional holders.” Sillek takes another few steps seaward,
testing the planks underfoot. One creaks and bends under his weight. He
shakes his head. “When you solve one problem, you get two
more.”

   “You’re right about
the Roof of the World.” Gethen laughs.
“That’s why I’m glad you’re the
lord, and I’m not.”

   “Well… if anything
happens to me, you’ll inherit the mess. So don’t
laugh too hard.”

   “Me?”
Gethen’s amazement is unfeigned.

   “Who else? The holders
wouldn’t accept my mother as regent, for which I am grateful,
or Zeldyan, for which I am not. So I’ve named you as head of
the regency council, with Zeldyan and Fornal as the other two
counselors. You’re respected, and your blood runs in Nesslek.
Besides, you don’t want the job-not that I hope you ever get
it, you understand.” Sillek’s voice turns dry with
his last words.

   Both men laugh.

   Behind them the torches flicker in the
wind, and before them the faint phosphorescence of the waves outlines
the distant breakwaters.

 

 

C

 

THE STOCKY CLOAKED figure climbs the outside stairs to
Hissl’s quarters and waits outside the door, silhouetted
against the late twilight horizon of summer.

   Hissl opens the door.

   “I have come to see how things
are going,” says the cloaked armsman.

   “Matters are not so simple as
the great hunter would think,” snaps Hissl, motioning the
other into his rooms, but leaving the door ajar. “If I leave
here while Lord Ildyrom remains a threat, no amount of success on the
Roof of the World will leave my head attached to my body, unless I stay
on the Roof of the World.” The wizard glares at the armsman.
“How did you like winter on the Roof of the World?”

   “I am not a wizard,
ser,” answers the armsman.

   “I am not a devil angel,
either, raised in the cold of Heaven and suckled on teats of
ice.”

   “How soon can you gather what
you promised?”

   “Lord Sillek is still in
Rulyarth, and may well be there until close to the end of
summer”

   “The end of summer?”

   “The great hunter wishes a
reward. The reward must.come from Lord Sillek. If we offend
him…” Hissl shrugs. “So we must wait,
until I can be relieved, for when he returns, I can certainly request
relief for a time after a year in this hole. Wizards are not that easy
to come by.”

   “If your good lord does not
wish to relieve you?”

   “Then I can leave my
position-but I would leave in good enough humor to claim His
Lordship’s reward. Not so if I deserted, especially not when
he is waging war, such as it is, against the Suthyans.” Hissl
smiles sardonically.

   “Can you get armsmen that late
in the year?”

   “I have the coin. With coin, I
can obtain twoscore of armsmen, maybe more if the harvest is
poor.” Hissl looks toward the window and the darkening
courtyard below. “Come back when you hear that Lord Sillek is
returning.”

   “I will be back.” The
armsman bows and slips out the door.

   Hissl’s eyes turn to the blank
glass. He smiles.

 

 

CI

 

As THE SUN neared the western peaks, Nylan eased the blade he
had labored over for more than a day into the quench, watching the
color intently, noting the flickering effect created by the wavelike
patterns of the hard-forged intertwinings of alloy and steel. When the
purplish shade crossed the edge he eased the weapon out of the liquid
and onto the bricks to cool in the gentle and dying heat from the forge.

   The slightly curved blade, similar to but
subtly different from the laser-forged blades, carried order and
strength without as much of a black sheen to the metal.

   “Another good one,”
offered Huldran.

   “Tomorrow, you can start
one.”

   “Me? It won’t be near
as good as yours.”

   “Mine weren’t as good
as mine when I started, either, but I’ll be demon-damned if
I’m going to be the only one slaving over weapons.
Let’s bank this down. I’ve had it.”

   Huldran nodded.
“Cessya’s working on doors and shutters for us,
sometimes.”

   “Good. We might get them before
the frosts.”

   “That’s a season
away, ser.”

   “I know.” After
piling the coals into the corner of the forge, Nylan took a strawgrass
broom and began to sweep the now-packed clay floor clean.
“The paving crew’s going to put in a stone floor
next eight-day.”

   “Do we need it?”

   “No more than doors and
windows.”

   The blond guard gave the engineer-smith a
crooked smile as she racked the tongs and the hammers.

   A cough caught Nylan, and he looked up.

   Relyn stood in the unfinished door. He
pointed to the cooling blade. “That is better than those you
forged with the fires of Heaven.”

   “I don’t know about
that,” Nylan said slowly, setting down the broom.
“I do know that it’s slower-a lot slower.”

   The one-handed man gave a single
headshake. “With a simple forge, you create almost a master
blade a day. No smith I know could touch that. It is as though you
could see inside the metal.”

   “Not that fast.”
Nylan frowned. He did see into the metal with his senses, but
didn’t most smiths on this crazy planet? He looked down at
his hands. “I need to wash up.”

   “I’ll finish here,
ser. You did the hard work.”

   “Pumping that bellows is no
fun.”

   “You can do that
tomorrow,” Huldran suggested as Nylan walked out into the
cooler air outside the smithy.

   Relyn followed.

   “What have you been
doing?” Nylan turned downhill.

   “What a one-handed man can do.
Gather grasses for drying, find leaves from the teaberry bush for
Blynnal, lead cart horses with loads of paving stones. I keep busy.
This is not a place where a man should be lazy.”

   “You could slip away.”

   “Where would I go?”
asked Relyn. “I am nothing in Lornth, and anywhere he is not
known, a one-handed man is first considered a thief.”

   “They don’t cut off
hands for that here?”

   “Not everywhere, but it is said
they do in Certis and Lydiar. So…” Relyn shrugged.
“I make myself useful here. Some of the women, like poor
Blynnal, do talk to me. None of the angels do, except you, the healer,
and some of the other silver-heads. You are the true angels, the ones
who can hold the black of order.”

   “I don’t think you
have to have silver hair to appreciate order,” Nylan
answered, his boots scuffing on the stone of the road.

   The paved sections of the road ran from
the causeway past the smithy and up to the mouth of the stable canyon
and to the bridge over the outfall. Piles of stones lined the upper
section of the road leading to the ridge, indicating where the next
paving and road-building would occur.

   A cart full of cut wood creaked toward
the castle, the cart horse being led by Kyseen, who flicked the long
leather leads not quite impatiently. Already, long piles of cut wood
more than guard-high stretched in three rows along the west side of the
road leading to the causeway, forming another wall between the low
crude one that marked the exercise yard and the road and causeway to
the south door of the tower.

   Nylan sniffed the air. The wind out of
the south carried the smell of damp ground from the irrigated fields,
and the fresher smell of cut grass. On the air, also, was the sound of
wooden wands against each other on the open expanse of the south
exercise yard.

   In the late afternoon, Saryn and Ryba,
helped by Istril and Kadran, drilled the newer guards with wands that
resembled the blades of Westwind.

   Nylan permitted himself a half-bitter
smile. His legacies would probably be Tower Black and the shape and
killing ability of the guard blades. Sooner or later, if not for years,
the composite bows would fail, but his efforts in the smithy proved
that, to some degree, he could replicate blades without the laser.
While the alloys helped, he suspected that a good local smith could do
the same entirely with local steels.

   As he paused to watch the practice, he
noted that Ryba alone wore a slug-thrower, in addition to her twin
blades, for the first time in seasons.

   “Nylan! You can spare a moment
to spar with us,” called Ryba.

   He shrugged and walked forward.

   “You know Nistayna. This is
Liethya, and this is Quilyn.” Ryba surveyed the three.
“Nistayna, you’re the farthest along.”
Then she handed Nylan the wand she had used.

   “So long as this
isn’t for blood. I’m stiff,” protested
Nylan.

   “Wands up,” ordered
the marshal.

   Nylan lifted his wand, trying to get into
the spirit of the sparring.

   Nistayna seemed almost diffident, and
Nylan easily slid around her wand and tapped a shoulder.

   “Nistayna! You’ll get
killed that way!” snapped Ryba. “Let me have your
wand.”

   Nylan began to understand what was
happening, and he waited as Ryba squared her shoulders and lifted the
wand.

   Then he attacked, as well as he could.
Ryba parried, and cut back. Nylan backpedaled. The wooden wands hurt,
especially with the force Ryba used.

   The engineer-smith tried to gather to
himself some of the feeling of order and pattern he felt within the
smithy and with a metal blade, and, as he did, the wand seemed lighter,
and almost wove a moving net with Ryba’s wand.

   For a time, neither he nor Ryba seemed
able to touch the other. But Nylan’s legs, rather than his
arms, gave out, and he stumbled. Ryba’s wand cracked his ribs.

   “All right,” he
groaned, with a forced laugh.

   Ryba handed the wand to Nistayna, whose
eyes were wide. “That is how good you must be.”

   “The mage-he is better than any
armsman I have seen.”

   “He’s better than any
I’ve seen,” added a male voice from the causeway,
“and I’ve seen a few.” Relyn gave a
crooked grin. “And she’s better than he is. Not by
much, but enough for it to count in a battle.”

   Ryba erased a momentarily puzzled look
from her face, as she said to Nylan, “You’ve gotten
better, much better. You aren’t practicing that
much.”

   “Smithing the hard way is good
for arm strength,” he said wryly, handing the wand back to
Ryba. “It’s my footwork that suffers.”

   Liethya and Quilyn still looked from Ryba
to Nylan and back again.

   “I’m going to wash up
before the evening meal.” The smith pushed hair that needed
cutting back off his damp forehead.

   “You’re quitting
before the sun sets and before it’s pitch-dark?”
Ryba asked in mock amazement.

   “I got to a stopping place.
I’ve got another blade finished that needs to be wrapped and
sharpened.”

   “I’ll have Fierral
get it in the morning, if that’s all right.”

   “Fine.”

   “Back to your
drills!” snapped Ryba. “You’ll drill
until you can hold off anyone who’s not as good as the mage-
or until your arms drop off.”

   Nylan could sense the unvoiced groans. He
would have groaned, too.

   Siret, Istril, and Niera had the
youngsters in one corner of the third level as Nylan trudged up. He
waved, briefly, and got a smile from Niera. Istril had her back to the
stairs, nursing Weryl, and Siret was juggling Kyalynn and Dephnay.

   Shortly, Nylan trudged back down toward
the bathhouse and a shower, carrying his cleaner leathers, the ones he
wore when he wasn’t dealing with coals, metals, and sweat.

   The bathhouse was warm, hot, with a fire
in the stove. While the showers were empty and the fire burning down,
the floor stones in two of the stalls were still wet. Nylan stripped
and soaked himself. The water was not freezing, but not quite lukewarm,
either, but he was hot enough that it didn’t matter as he
took what passed for soap and lathered up. Then he shaved, by feel, no
longer needing a mirror.

   After he dried off, a process more like
wiping the water off his body and letting the rest evaporate than
toweling dry, he eased into the cleaner shirt and leather trousers and
boots.

   As he passed through the archway, he
nearly ran into Huldran.

   “How’s the water,
ser?” Huldran was smeared with soot, and her hair was sweaty
and plastered to her skull.

   “Someone fired up the stove.
It’s not bad.” He looked at the guard.

   “I had Denize do it.”

   “Thank you.”

   “It was as much for me as you,
ser,” said Huldran with a grin.

   “I still appreciate it. Enjoy
your shower.”

   Huldran gave a half-nod as she padded
barefoot toward the showers. Nylan opened the north door, noting that
the archway didn’t seem to trap moisture in the summer the
way it had in the winter.

   “Excuse me, ser.”
Kadran scurried past him and out the big south door to ring the
triangle for the evening meal.

   Almost before the echoes died away,
guards appeared from everywhere-outside following Kadran in, and from
the third level, trooping down to the main floor of the tower.

   Nylan stood back in the generally unused
space on the east side. If they could bring in more glass, then perhaps
the space could be used for the children, eventually space for
schooling. And that was something else-books. They needed to preserve
the knowledge base.

   He took a deep breath, trying to regain
his mental balance before crossing the foyer area into the great room.
The great room now held five tables, although the fifth was sometimes
not used, and not full when in use.

   As Nylan passed the empty fifth table,
and then the fourth, most of the newer guards looked down, almost as
much as when Ryba passed. Unlike the others, Nistayna offered a faint
smile, and Niera just looked up with wide eyes.

   “Better eat all your
dinner,” he told the girl, feeling awkward, but feeling he
should say something.

   Istril stood, awkwardly holding a
squirming Weryl. Nylan extended his hands, and Weryl thrust out his
pudgy hands.

   “All right, Weryl.”
As the boy smiled, Nylan grinned and scooped him up.
“He’s growing. You must be feeding him
right.”

   Both Istril and Nylan blushed when he
realized the inappropriateness of the remark.

   “I tried one of the new
blades,” began Istril after the awkward silence. “I
like it even better than the others, even if I won’t be using
it in battle for some time yet.”

   “The new ones are a lot more
work.” Nylan paused and shifted Weryl as his son’s
fingers probed at his jaw. “Why do you like it
better?”

   “It feels more solid.”

   “It’s heavier. That
might be one reason. There’s more iron in it.”

   “Not that much. The balance
could be better.”

   Blynnal passed, carrying one of the
caldrons filled with sauce and meat.

   “The last of the salted horse
meat, dressed and sauced to disguise the taste.”

   “Not the last,”
prophesied Istril.

   Nylan glanced across the table, but Siret
was not around.

   “She’s up nursing
Dephnay. Kyalynn was still sleeping,” Istril explained.
“I’ll feed Dephnay later.”

   “How is that going?”
Nylan shifted Weryl again to keep from being poked in the eye.

   “Not that well. It’s
a good thing both Siret and I can nurse. Dephnay has trouble with even
the softest solid foods.”

   Kadran passed them, hauling a second
caldron, this one filled with what looked to be noodles.

   “Fire noodles,”
laughed Istril.

   “They’re not
bad.”

   “How would anyone know?
They’re so hot you can’t taste anything.”

   Ryba entered the great room, holding
Dyliess to her. shoulder, and walked down the other side of the tables.

   “Come on, Weryl,”
said Istril, taking her son back, “your father needs to eat,
too. You already did.”

   “Oooo…”

   Nylan gently disengaged Weryl’s
fingers and made his way to his place at the first table.

   “Do you want to eat first or
second?” he asked Ryba.

   “First, if you don’t
mind.”

   “No problem.” He
reached out and eased Dyliess into his lap.

   “I can’t tell which
of you she looks like,” offered Ayrlyn, sitting across from
Nylan. “When I look at you, Ryba, and then at Dyliess, you
look the same, except for the hair. But the same thing is true when I
look at Nylan.”

   Huldran slid into the seat next to Nylan.
“Too early to tell, but she seems to favor both.
Doesn’t matter. She’ll be a handsome woman
whichever way.”

   “What do you think of the new
blades, Huldran?” Ryba asked after chewing and swallowing a
mouthful of meat, sauce, and noodles.

   Nylan eased Dyliess to his left knee and
sipped the cool tea, then reached for the bread and awkwardly broke off
a dark steaming chunk.

   “Some ways, I like them better.
There’s more weight there, and they seem to be just as tough.
Maybe we should give the older ones, the first ones, to the smaller
guards, or the newer ones.”

   Her mouth full, Ryba nodded.

   “The engineer, he’s
teaching me how.” Huldran shook her head. “Never
thought making a single small piece of steel would take so much work.
But the new blades, they’ve ”got enough heft to
make it easier to stand up to those crowbars- the kind Gerlich
liked.“

   When Ryba did not respond immediately,
Ayrlyn asked, “Do we have any idea what he’s up to?
Gerlich, I mean?”

   “He doesn’t like the
heat. So I can’t imagine he’s too far down in the
lowlands,” mused Nylan.

   “He’s trying to
gather an army to attack Westwind. I suppose,” Ryba added
after a pause.

   Nylan’s stomach sank at the
timing of the pause. Ryba wasn’t guessing.

   “Do you think he’ll
be successful?” asked Huldran.
‘   “He took a lot of coin and
some old weapons,” said Ayrlyn.

   “I’d guess
we’d see him in late summer, before harvest,”
speculated Ryba. “Hired armsmen would be cheaper
then.”

   “He’ll try something
sneaky. He’s that type,” said Huldran.

   “True,” agreed Ryba.

   Nylan grabbed Dyliess’s
wandering hand just in time to keep his mug from being knocked over.
“Hold it, little one. You don’t drink tea. I
do.”

   Ryba continued to eat, almost silently,
her eyes half glazed over. When she was done, she held out her arms,
and Nylan ate.

   Dyliess began to fuss, and Ryba rose,
nodding. “Excuse me, but my young friend here has some plans
for me.” With a quick smile, the marshal was gone.

   “She’s
preoccupied,” Ayrlyn observed.

   “Wouldn’t you
be?” offered Huldran. “She’s got a lot to
worry about.”

   So do we all, thought Nylan, without
speaking his thoughts. So do we all.

   After the evening meal, Nylan walked
uphill in the twilight, past the doorless and windowless smithy, and
then northward until he came to a small hillock of rocks that
overlooked the lander shell still used to store grasses and hay. The
drying racks, half filled with grass, stretched across the space
between the meadow and the rising rocky hills to the west. One empty
rack lay broken and sprawled on the rocky ground.

   The brighter stars were appearing in the
south, one on each side of the ice-tipped Freyja. As the evening
deepened, more points of light appeared, and no star looked that
different to Nylan from those he had seen from Heaven. Only the
patterns in the sky were different.

   The wind had switched, and blew cooler
and out of the north. Nylan sat on a smooth boulder and looked at the
bulk of Tower Black, and at the dark fields beyond, and the lighter
stones of the cairns to the southeast. So many cairns for such a short
time, and he had no illusions. The number of cairns would continue to
grow.

   “Nylan?”

   He looked down in the direction of the
drying racks.

   Ayrlyn stood at the base of the rocks.
“Would you mind if I climbed up to talk to you? You look like
you need someone to talk to. I do.”

   Nylan waved her up and waited until she
settled on a boulder beside him. Unlike Nylan, who sat in the dark in a
shirt, the healer wore shirt, tunic, and a light ship jacket.

   “Neither you and Ryba talk much
anymore.”

   “What is there to talk about?
The situation seems impossible, that’s all. I feel so
awkward. Weryl’s my son, and Kyalynn’s my daughter,
and I’ve never touched Istril or Siret.” He
laughed, a soft harsh sound. “Except with a wand in sparring.
Yet I feel that Ryba wants me to ignore them. Even though it
wasn’t my idea, they are my children.”

   “You try so hard. Siret and
Istril know that.”

   “Does trying count? Or is Ryba
right, that, in the end, only survival and results count?” He
cleared his throat. “Oh, there are all the religions and
philosophies about life being worth nothing if it isn’t lived
well-but all that’s written for people who have the time and
the resources to read, not for a bunch of high-tech refugees trying to
scrape together a future on a cold mountaintop.”

   “Go on,” said Ayrlyn.

   “All I do is cobble together
infrastructures that most places have years, if not decades, to
build-and figure out better low-tech weapons for Ryba to train people
to use. Every time someone dies, it hurts.”

   Ayrlyn nodded.

   “But I’m supposed to
ignore that, too.” He paused. “I’m
feeling too sorry for myself. The deaths hurt you, too.”

   “Death’s everywhere,
Nylan. We could have died on the Winterlance. Maybe we did. Maybe this
is all an elaborate illusion.”

   “It’s no
illusion.” He glanced up at the cold stars. “There,
I didn’t feel each death personally.”

   “This might be
better,” reflected Ayrlyn. “Death was a sanitary
and distant occurrence there. It just happened- light-minutes away at
the end of a de-energizer. No more demons. Or no more angels. And we
could ignore it. Here we can’t.”

   “Most people can-here or there.
We just can’t.”

   Ayrlyn’s hand touched his
forearm.

   “Your fingers are
cold.” He took her hand in his, then looked up again. The
stars above were bright. Bright and unfamiliar. Bright and cold. He
squeezed her fingers, gently.

 

 

CII

 

SILLEK TOSSES THE scroll, wrinkled and smudged, with fragments
of wax still clinging to one edge, on the sitting room table. Then he
bends over Zeldyan and scoops Nesslek out of his consort’s
arms.

   “You’re the best
thing I’ve seen today, except for your mother.”

   “I’m a thing
now?” Zeldyan’s voice carries but a faint edge.

   “Of course not. That
wasn’t what I meant.” He looks down at his son in
his arms and puts his forehead gently against the boy’s.
“Was it? We didn’t mean any insults to your
mother.” . “Oooooo…” offers
Nesslek.

   “That’s what he
thinks,” responds Zeldyan, “for all your fancy
words.” She smiles fondly at her consort.

   “Would you read that
abomination I dropped on the table and tell me what you
think?”

   “A lordly matter? Your mother
would not approve, my lord.” Zeldyan smiles again, more
ironically, as she lifts the scroll. “Why do you want me to
read it?”

   “You know why,”
Sillek counters with a laugh, “but I’ll tell you
anyway. Because you’re your father’s daughter, and
you can think. He’s stuck in Rulyarth trying to rebuild that
mess the traders left, and I need someone with brains that I can also
trust.”

   “Your mother would definitely
not approve of that.”

   “Of course not. You have
brains, and you love me. She didn’t approve of our joining
after she found out I’d fallen in love with you.
‘Love is dangerous for rulers, Sillek.’ It gets in
the way of honor and patrimony.” He walks to the window and
stands there, still carrying Nesslek, ‘waiting as Zeldyan
reads through the scroll.

   After a time, he finally asks,
“Have you got it?”

   “It’s a letter from
Ildyrom, renouncing all interest in the grasslands. There are many
flowery phrases, but that’s what it says… I
think.”

   “Exactly.” Sillek
bites off the word. “Exactly. It came with a small chest of
golds.”

   “That seems odd,”
muses Zeldyan. “Last year he built that fort to try to take
them from you. I wouldn’t trust him.”

   “I don’t, but I think
the gesture is real, and it’s a danger.”

   “Not having to fight over the
grasslands is a danger?”

   “All my holders will know that
Ildyrom has sued for peace. Your father holds Rulyarth, and the locals
there seem to be pleased with his efforts. We offered a percentage of
our trade revenues from Rulyarth to the Suthyan trade
council-”

   “You did?”

   “It was your father’s
idea-much cheaper for both of us. They couldn’t really
maintain three ports anyway.”

   “And we can even if the traders
couldn’t?”

   “If we expand trade, we can.
They just wanted quick golds.” Sillek shrugs and lifts
Nesslek to his shoulder. The infant burps-loudly. “The bay is
much better than Armat…”

   Zeldyan laughs. “I’ve
heard this before. What about Ildyrom?”

   “It’s demonish. We
have peace with both Suthya and Ildyrom. All our borders are
secure-except for those devil women on the Westhorns.”

   “Oh.” The smile fades
from Zeldyan’s face.

   “You see? The chest of
golds-that’s already known. You can’t keep that a
secret. It even means I can hire mercenaries. More women have left the
holdings. Genglois had three petitions waiting for me-demanding I do
something.” Sillek lowers Nesslek and wipes his mouth gently.

   “What will you do?”

   “Stall.” Sillek
lowers his voice. “Make obvious preparations. Send dispatches
to your father. Stall and hope. Hope for an early winter, or the need
to do something urgent in Rulyarth or the grasslands.”

   “And neither Ildyrom nor the
traders will offer the slightest pretext while your stodgy traditional
holders bombard you with demands to reclaim the Roof of the
World.”

   “That’s the way I see
it.” Sillek sighs. “But I have a little time. Not
much, but a little. I can hope.”

   A frown crosses Zeldyan’s
forehead, but she forces a smile.

 

 

CIII

 

“WE DON’T TALK much anymore,”
Ryba said quietly. “I miss that.”

   “I’m sorry. I guess I
don’t much feel like talking a lot of the time,”
Nylan said quietly, as he rocked the cradle and watched his
daughter’s face through the darkness.

   “Could I ask why?”
The marshal’s voice was calm, soft. “Is it just me?
You go off and talk to Ayrlyn.”

   “I worry, and I worry about
things that seem set in stone. I feel like, when I talk to you, we talk
in circles.” When Ryba did not answer, he continued, his eyes
still on Dyliess. “We go back and forth saying the same
things. If you try to avoid using force, people die. If I
don’t build towers and weapons and what amounts to a low-tech
military infrastructure, people will die. If you don’t play
tyrant and I won’t play stud, our children won’t
have any future.” His voice dropped into silence.

   Again, Ryba was silent, and he continued
to rock the cradle and to watch the sleeping Dyliess. In time, he
spoke. “Even as each killing hurts more, I become better at
making weapons and using them. I can’t walk away from you, or
Istril, or Siret, or little Dephnay who won’t know her mother
or her father-not now-but I keep asking myself how long I can continue
doing this.” He gave a rueful grin he doubted Ryba could see
through the darkness. “How long before I’m so blind
in a battle that I get spitted? And if I don’t kill my
allotted one or two, who else will get killed?”

   “You think I like
it?” asked Ryba, her voice still calm. “I
can’t ask anything without the threat of some sort offeree. I
can’t get anyone to see what I see. If I try to use reason,
even you fight me. If I use coercion and trickery, then what does that
make me? But I have to, if I want a daughter, and if I want her to have
a future. There aren’t any choices for me, Nylan. And there
aren’t many for you.”

   Nylan looked back at Dyliess’s
peaceful and innocent face, asking himself, Were we like that once?
Does life force us into the use of force and violence, just to survive?

   “You have visions of what must
be, and when you don’t follow those, people suffer and
die,” Nylan finally said. “You’ve told me
that, and I see that. I see it, but that doesn’t mean I have
to like it.”

   “All I want is for us to be
free, for the guards, me, Dyliess, not to be trapped in a culture in
which some horses are treated better than women. That’s not
asking a lot.”

   “It doesn’t seem
so,” agreed Nylan. “But for us to be free seems to
require more recruits and more and more weapons. More recruits makes
the locals madder, and that means we have to defend ourselves, which
leads to more deaths, and more plunder. That allows us to get stronger,
but only if we keep our deaths few, which means better training and
more weapons. Better training means less food-growing and hunting, and
that means a military culture, probably eventually hiring out to the
powers that be.” Nylan cleared his throat. “Is that
what you see? Is that what you want?”

   “I wish I could see a more
peaceful way, but I don’t. Westwind will have to hire out
some guards, but from what little I do see, we will be able to prosper
by building better trade roads, by levying tariffs on them, and by
protecting them.” Ryba paused. “I don’t
see this as the clear and unified picture you paint, either. I catch an
image here, or there, and I have to try to visualize how it fits. I
always worry that I won’t put the pieces of this puzzle
together right, and that I’ll fail and someone else will die
who shouldn’t.”

   Nylan slowly eased the cradle to a stop.
Dyliess gave the smallest of snores, then sighed. He slipped under the
light and thin blanket that was all he needed in the summer evening.

   “Would you hold me?”
asked Ryba. “I know you’ve been forced, tricked,
and coerced, and I’m not proud of it. But it’s
lonely. I’m not asking for love. Just hold me.”

   In the darkness Nylan slipped from his
couch to hers, where, uncertain as he was, Nylan put his arms around
her, his eyes open to the rough planking overhead, wondering how long
he could hold her, yet knowing she had no one else.

 

 

CIV

 

“HISSL HAS REQUESTED relief from his post in Clynya
for three eight-days,” Sillek says, looking up from the table
and stifling a yawn. His breath causes the candles in the nearer
candelabra to flicker.

   “He’s been there for
a while, hasn’t he?” asks Zeldyan, gently bouncing
Nesslek on one knee, while occasionally picking up a morsel from the
small sitting room table and eating it.

   “Yes.”

   “Why does it bother
you?”

   “Terek says he’s up
to something, something not exactly wizardly. Strange people have been
visiting him-armsmen no one recognizes. He’s been laying up
enough provisions for a small army. Koric told me that. He laughed.
Said that Hissl has no idea how to do something secretly.”

   “He’s not…
surely he wouldn’t try to… he’s not
stupid enough for treason.”

   “No. And he’s not
subtle enough to try it that way. If he were out to overthrow me, his
best chance would have been to murder Koric and open the grasslands to
Ildyrom in return for support from Jerans. He is smart enough to
consider that. Since he didn’t, it’s something
else.” Sillek yawns and looks at his son. “When
will he go to sleep?”

   “Soon,” says Zeldyan
with a laugh. “Keep talking. Your voice soothes him. So what
is Hissl doing?”

   “I’m just guessing,
but I’d say he’s going to mount his own expedition
to the Roof of the World.”

   “Why? He wouldn’t
know a sword from a dagger.”

   “He is a wizard, and he told
Terek last year that he thought the thunder-throwers of those angel
women would not last a year.”

   Zeldyan frowns. “Why would he
risk such a thing?”

   “He dislikes being second to
Terek. He would like lands in his own right and a title. I could not
back down on my promise on that, especially if Hissl defeats them, and
he knows that. My word would be forfeit to every holder and every
wizard in Candar.” Sillek frowns, then stifles another yawn.

   “You’re more tired
than your son. Perhaps you should be the one going to sleep.”

   “I’m not that
tired.”

   Zeldyan laughs and cradles Nesslek in her
arms. “His eyes are drooping, and I’ll be able to
put him in the cradle soon. Your mother thinks ill of my closeness with
him.”

   “I know. She says nothing,
though.”

   “You don’t mind, do
you? He’ll grow so fast. I saw that happen with Fornal and
Relyn.”

   “Have you heard anything about
Relyn?”

   Zeldyan shakes her head. “Why
are you worried if Hissl is going to attack the Roof of the World? If
he wins, you don’t have to go. If he loses, he still may
weaken them.”

   “I ‘m no longer sure
about that. I wonder if I see Ildyrom’s fine hand behind all
this.”

   “Keep talking,” says
Zeldyan as she slips to her feet and steps toward the cradle.

   “Terek says that every time
that someone has attacked those devil women, the women have gotten a
lot of plunder. They’re selling a lot of plate armor and
blades to traveling traders for supplies. They’ve got mounts
and some livestock, and a tower and they’re building more
buildings…” Zeldyan nods to Sillek to keep
speaking as she eases Nesslek into the cradle and starts to rock it
gently.

   “… now Ildyrom is as
devious as a giant water lizard and about twice as dangerous. What if
he’s backing Hissl, not directly, but through some
adventurers? Ildyrom can’t lose. If Hissl wins, I lose the
wizard that’s kept him at bay. I also lose face, and
that’s a problem with the holders that will tie me up. If
Hissl loses, that’s worse. Those angels will have enough
plunder that it will take all the free armsmen in Candar to pry them
out. And even more women will start fleeing unhappy situations here and
in Gallos, and whatever it is, those people on the Roof of the World
know how to fight and to teach other to fight. So all my holders will
be up in arms if I don’t act. So will Karthanos. And Ildyrom,
with his pledge not to take the grasslands, loses nothing, only a small
chest of coins. Even if I win, it will be a bloody mess, and it will be
years before we could consider more than holding on to what we already
have.”

   “That’s more than
enough now,” Zeldyan points out. “I know that. But
from Ildyrom’s position, a few coins behind Hissl is a cheap
way to weaken Lornth no matter what happens. And I can’t
afford to stop Hissl, either. That’s what’s so
demonish about it.”

   Zeldyan lets the cradle slow and steps
back. Nesslek snuffles momentarily, but continues to sleep. She turns
to Sillek. “You can tell me more later. We can talk when
he’s awake. Unless you’re too sleepy?”

   “Never.”

   “Good.” She leans
over and blows out the candles.

 

 

CV

 

THE AIR WAS still, hot, and humid-for the Roof of the World-in
the brickworks canyon. The three who toiled beside the stream were
soaked in sweat, except where their boots and trousers were damp from
the running water.

   One knee-high line of rocks and bricks
mortared together ran from the north side of the stream to the canyon
wall. On the south side of the stream a trench extended toward the hill
that straddled the middle of the canyon. There, Rienadre, Denalle, and
Nylan struggled to remove the silty and clay-filled soil, at least
enough to provide footings for the crude retaining wall that would,
Nylan hoped, form the millpond.

   Nylan paused and leaned on the shovel,
wishing he had explosives, even crude black powder, but while he could
make charcoal, he hadn’t seen or heard of anything resembling
sulfur or potassium nitrate. As for more sophisticated explosives-gun
cotton or blasting gelatin-he was no chemist. None of them were.

   Clank…

   “Friggin‘
rocks,” muttered Denalle, attempting to lever a stone more
than a cubit long and half as thick and wide out of the trench. Nylan
lifted his shovel, and the two of them levered it out of the way.

    The engineer-smith blotted his forehead
and began digging again.

   Rienadre walked up from where she had
been toiling nearer the stream, halted by Nylan, and gestured.
“Is where I’ve outlined that second channel far
enough from the first?”

   Nylan stopped digging momentarily. His
eyes followed her gesture. “Should be. We’ll put a
small gate in each spot. That way we can drain the pond if
it’s necessary for repairs.”

   “Why two?” puffed
Denalle.

   “The stream has to have
somewhere to go while we’re working on the first
one,” answered Rienadre for Nylan.
“Same’s true when we go back to work on the second
one.”

   “Just when I think
we’re done making bricks,” commented Denalle as
Rienadre passed, “the engineer comes up with something else.
We’ll never be done.”

   “We weren’t ever done
when we were marines, either.” Rienadre started to walk down
toward the stream. “Rather take my chances against the locals
than the demons of light.”

   “Maybe,” grunted
Denalle as she thrust the shovel into the ground. “But dying
here is dirty, and it hurts more.”

   As Nylan kept digging, his thoughts spun
through the shafts, the gearing and mill structure. He was probably
stuck with an overshot wheel, just because he knew how to make that
work, but somewhere he had the notion that an undershot wheel was more
efficient-or was it the other way around? How would he have known that
kind of knowledge would come in useful?

   Nylan lifted out another shovelful of
dirt and clay. He had to have thought of a sawmill, hadn’t
he? And half the guards had to bitch about it, because none of them
could see that the mill mechanism could be used for dozens of
applications. Why was it that no one ever liked the practical side of
things, in songs, trideo dramas, or in real life? No, the people who
were practical always lost to the warriors and the glory hounds. He
shook his head and kept digging.

 

 

CVI

 

CLOUDS SCUDDED QUICKLY across the greenish-blue morning sky,
leaving the Roof of the World intermittently darkened by fast-moving
shadows. Gusts of wind, cooled by the ice-capped peaks to the west,
whipped back and forth those few scrawny firs that clung to crevices in
the walls of the narrow canyon above the Westwind stables.

   Nylan checked the shovels and other gear
strapped to the back of the mare’s saddle. Another long day
of earth-moving and rock-mortaring! In an eight-day or so, they might
even be able to start work on the mill’s foundation. He
patted the mare’s shoulder and led her out into the light.
“Come on, lady.”

   At the end of the stables, Ryba stood,
talking to Istril, Hryessa, and Ydrall. All three guards stood before
saddled mounts, and all three were fully armed with twin blades and
bows.

   Nylan paused, then strained to listen,
his hand absently patting the mare to quiet her.

   “… they
won’t try a frontal attack. Even Gerlich isn’t that
stupid. So your job is to scout around the area and discover any
possible place they could bring up horses and armed men…
start with the second canyon there. Look for traces on the trees and
bushes, up high. Remember, the snow was deep…”

   The engineer-smith swung up into the
saddle, teetering there awkwardly for a moment. He still
wasn’t totally comfortable riding, but one way or another
he’d eventually learned. He didn’t have any real
alternatives to horses and skis, it appeared. He flicked the brown
mare’s reins and slowly rode toward the three guards who
listened intently to Ryba.

   “Just a moment. I need a word
with the engineer before he heads off down to the lower
works,” Ryba said, stepping back from the guards and turning
toward Nylan.

   The engineer-smith reined up.

   “Do what you can down at the
mill over the next few days.” Ryba lowered her voice.
“After that, I’d like you and Rienadre and Denalle
to stay close to the tower.”

   “Gerlich?”

   Ryba nodded. “I can’t
tell when, but it feels like it won’t be long.”

   “Do you want me to get the
weapons laser ready?”

   “No. We’ll need that
later, when we face a real army.”

   “If we don’t stop
Gerlich, there won’t be a later.”

   “I know.”

   The flatness of her voice stopped Nylan.
After a moment, he said, “All right.”

   After another silence, she added,
“You can work on more blades, if you would. We’ll
need those, too, as many as you and Huldran can make.”

   “A good anvil would
help,” Nylan said.

   “Tell Ayrlyn. It’s a
good investment.” She flashed him a quick smile, bright and
shallow.

   “We’ll hold off on
the millrace and the mill. We might get the pond finished in the next
few days. Then, we can certainly go back to forging a few
blades.”

   “Good.” Ryba turned
back to the guards, continuing almost as though she hadn’t
talked to Nylan. “Gerlich should have left traces, bent
branches, scars. He might even have marked a trail. Look for
them…”

   Nylan flicked the reins gently, then
leaned forward and patted the mare on the shoulder again as she whuffed
and stepped sideways before walking downhill toward the smithy and the
tower.

 

 

CVII

 

SILLEK STEPS INTO the hot tower room, dim despite the blazing
summer sun outside, and hot and close, even with the breeze seeping
through the two open windows.

   Despite his light shirt and thin
trousers, Sillek begins to sweat almost immediately.

   “Lord Sillek,” says
Terek, standing, “I found what you were seeking.”
The white wizard rubs his forehead, then gestures to the blank glass.
“If you’re ready, I’ll try to call it up
again.”

   “Please do.”

   Terek seats himself on the high-backed
stool, shifting his weight from side to side for a moment. White mists
swirl across the silver of the glass. Then, in the midst of the white
mists in the glass, an image forms. A line of horsemen winds its way
along a narrow mountain road in the glare of the midday sun.

   “Yes?”
Sillek’s eyes narrow, and he strains to discern details which
would identify the horsemen. “Who are they? Where are they
going?”

   Sweat drips from Terek’s face,
and the lines in his forehead deepen as he concentrates.
“I’ll try to get a closer picture.”

   After a moment, the image shifts
slightly, to the head of the column where a white-coated figure rides
between two armed men. The taller figure wears a huge blade across his
shoulders.

   “That’s Hissl, all
right,” murmurs Sillek. “And the smaller one, he
looks familiar, but I don’t know why.” He studies
the image for a time longer. “That looks like the road past
the Ironwoods into the Westhorns, just into the real
mountains.”

   Terek, sweat now pouring down his cheeks,
clears his throat. “Ah… ser… do you
need to see… any more?”

   “Oh, no.” Sillek
pauses, then asks, “Do you know who the other fellow was? The
big one?”

   Terek clears his throat, once, twice.
“No, ser. He feels a little like a beginning white wizard,
but I know I’ve never seen him.” Terek takes out a
large white square of cloth and slowly blots his forehead. After a
time, he slides off the stool and shakes the white robes away from his
body.

   “Hissl must have gathered
twoscore armsmen there.” Sillek purses his lips.

   “He wants to be Lord of the
Ironwoods.” Terek’s voice is flat.

   “If he can defeat those angel
women, I’d be most happy to grant him the title and those
lands.” Sillek forces a laugh. “It would take a
wizard to make that maze of thorn trees productive.”

   “I wish him well,”
adds Terek.

   “I know you do. He’s
difficult to work with, isn’t he?”
Sillek’s eyes fix on the white wizard.

   Terek takes a long look at the Lord of
Lornth, then speaks in measured tones. “Hissl has a great
willingness to work hard, great talent, and a great opinion of that
talent.”

   “As I said…
difficult to work with.” Sillek chuckles.
“Don’t mind me, Master Wizard. And I thank you for
your images. They make things clearer.”

   He turns and walks from the small room,
adding under his breath, “But not that much
clearer.”

 

 

CVIII

 

NYLAN DISMOUNTED AND led the brown mare into the stable. His
working clothes were almost tatters, and damp through, either from
sweat or water, and his feet squished in his boots with each step he
took. Mud streaked his arms and his clothes. As always, his arms ached,
and so did his legs, and most of his muscles.

   Still, the footings and the base of the
millpond wall were completed, and he had another day before he had to
return to smithing. Behind him, Rienadre led her mount into the
stables. If anything, she was damper and muddier than Nylan.

   The engineer-smith struggled with the
cinch and girth, and finally unsaddled the mare. Mechanically, he
brushed her, occasionally patting her flanks or neck. After stalling
her and ensuring that her manger was full, he walked silently down the
road and past the now-deserted smithy. The sun was almost touching the
western peaks. Behind the faint chirping of insects and the
intermittent songs of the green and yellow birds came the low baaing of
the sheep grazing around the cairns.

   ‘He shivered slightly, knowing
there would be more cairns, and hoping that he would not be laid under
those rocks.

   He crossed the causeway, entered the
tower, and paused. Ryba, Fierral, and three guards were clustered
around the last table in the great room. Nylan extended his
perceptions, feeling faintly guilty for his magical eavesdropping but
being curious nonetheless.

   “The second canyon over-the one
that looked like a dead end? It’s not,” declared
Istril. “It’s narrow. Then it climbs before it
widens, and it’s almost a flat run down to the trading road.
I can’t say that Gerlich was there, but there are some marks
on the trees, a good four to six cubits up in places, small crosses,
and they were made recently.”

   “How recently?” asked
Fierral.

   “Last spring or late winter.
The bark’s puckered a bit. In one place, there’s a
broken limb that has growth buds that died.”

   Hryessa nodded.

   “Anything else?”
asked Ryba, her eyes circling the table. After a long silence, she
continued. “We’ll need a place for an outpost-one
that can be watched, but isn’t in the canyon itself-and a
clear route to get back to the tower. I want two guards there all the
time from now on.”

   “Two?”

   “One to watch, and one to get
back the warning to us.”

   “Why don’t we just
block the canyon?”

   “Because then I don’t
know where Gerlich will attack from,” pointed out Ryba.
“Oh… there’s a back path from the canyon
to the stable-or a way Gerlich’s men will take to try to fire
the stables. Find it, and work out the best place for an ambush. That
will be a quick way to take out four of his armsmen, and they
won’t be expecting it at dawn.”

   Fierral and Saryn exchanged glances.

   Nylan slipped past the stairs and headed
for the north door and the bathhouse. He hoped that Ryba’s
visions were correct, but he wasn’t about to question her,
not when her perceptions had been so accurate so far. And this time, if
Gerlich did as she foresaw, there wouldn’t be any question of
guilt.

 

 

CIX

 

GERLICH HOLDS UP his hand, and the column slows to a halt. The
early-morning mist rises out of the trees to the east of the road that
continues to climb as it turns northward.

   “All right, Ser
Wizard,” the big man announces. “Get out your glass
or whatever you need, and scout out that trail.” He points to
a gap between the trees on the side of the road. “I want you
to make sure no one is on it.”

   “That’s not even a
real trail, and it goes right into the mountain,” protests
Hissl. “What good will that do?”

   “It is a trail,”
answers Gerlich. “I’ve scouted it, and it curves
through this slope and rocky ridge and comes out right behind the
tower-inside their watch posts and defenses. And it’s close
enough so that there’s a back way to their stables. You have
the map on that, Nirso.” The hunter nods to the squat armsman
riding behind Narliat.

   Narliat’s eyes flick from the
wizard, who dismounts and eases a padded and leather-covered glass from
one saddlebag, to Gerlich and then to the road ahead. His lips tighten.

   “Worried, friend Narliat? You
have seen what I can do with the blade and bow, and they certainly will
not be expecting an attack-especially from here.” Gerlich
laughs.

   Hissl squats on the ground, concentrating
on the glass before him, and the mists that appear. After a time, he
rises, wipes his forehead, and repacks the glass.

   “Well?”

   “There is no one on the trail.
It is narrow, but I could see no tracks and no horses.”

   “Good.” Gerlich turns
his mount uphill, and the others follow.

 

 

CX

 

“FRIED RODENT, AGAIN,” muttered Huldran
from beside Nylan. “Demon-damned stuff to put in your guts
before smithing.”

   “The rodents serve two saving
purposes,” answered Ayrlyn with a smile. “Serving
them saves other food for the winter, and killing them keeps them from
eating the crops. They like the beans and, for some reason, they want
to dig up the potatoes. So they also serve who are served.”

   Nylan hastily washed down a mouthful of
fried rodent meat. “That’s a terrible
pun.” He followed his comment with a mouthful of cold bread.

   “Oooo,” commented
Dyliess from the carrypack Ryba wore.

   “That’s fine,
dear,” said Ryba, “but you’re not the one
who has to eat it.” Her eyes flicked toward the doorway,
again.

   Ryba seemed on edge all the time, Nylan
reflected, but especially in the morning, as the days had dragged out
since Istril had discovered what seemed to be Gerlich’s back
route to the Roof of the World.

   “How soon, do you
think?” he asked.

   Ayrlyn rubbed her forehead, and Nylan
smiled faintly. Thinking about a battle and all those who would need
healing would certainly give any healer a headache-at least, he thought
it would.

   The sound of hoofbeats on the paved
section of the road from the smithy to the tower rat - a - tatted in
through the open windows to the great room. Ryba stood, unstrapping the
carrypack, even before Liethya burst into the room. The young guard
glanced toward the marshal and then to Fierral, as if uncertain as to
whom she should report.

   “I presume the traitor has
returned,” Ryba said, her voice hard as she eased Dyliess,
still in the carrypack, to Nylan.

   “There are armsmen on the
trail, ser.” Liethya’s voice trembled slightly.

   Fierral stood. So did Saryn.

   Saryn motioned. “Stable detail.
Let’s go.” She left the room almost at a run,
followed by Hryessa, Jaseen, and Selitra.

   Fierral added, “The rest of you
to the stables-with full weapons.”

   All the guards at the tables, except for
Istril, boiled off the benches and toward the end of the great room,
some hurrying up the stone steps, presumably for weapons and gear,
others straight out the main door.

   Ryba touched Nylan on the shoulder. He
turned, the carrypack unfastened, Dyliess in it and looking wide-eyed
at him.

   “Blynnal and Niera will take
care of the children. Relyn, Siret, and Istril will hold the tower, if
necessary. Join us as soon as you can,” Ryba whispered to
Nylan as he took their daughter. Then she was hurrying for the door as
well, picking up her bow and a full quiver from the shelves by the
stairs.

   “Off to the
slaughter,” announced Ayrlyn. “Sometimes, I wonder
if it will ever stop.”

   “Not until they destroy us or
it’s clear we’re strong enough to destroy
them.” Nylan shifted Dyliess into a more comfortable position
to carry her.

   “Demon-hell of a
world,” said Ayrlyn with a laugh. She gulped down the last of
her cool tea and added, “Just like every other
world.”

   “You’re so
cheerful.”

   “Cynically realistic, Nylan.
I’d like to change things, but I haven’t figured
out how.”

   “That makes two of us.
I’d better stop talking, though, and start moving.”
Carrying Dyliess in his arms, not bothering to strap the carrypack in
place, Nylan half walked, half ran up to the fifth level, breathing
heavily by the time he stopped in front of the space where he kept his
weapons.

   Dyliess whimpered, jolted by his running,
and he patted her back and laid her on the floor momentarily as he
pulled out the second blade-one of the newer iron ones-and strapped it
in place. That way, as Ryba had suggested, he could throw one, if he
needed to, and still defend himself. Privately, he wondered if
he’d be in any shape to defend himself if the first blade
were accurate. Then, he could miss, and without the second blade,
he’d be dead meat.

   He picked up Dyliess and patted her again
and again, before starting down to the third level, where Blynnal and
Niera were rearranging cradles. Dephnay and Kyalynn were in two of
them, and Niera held Weryl. The girl handed Weryl to Blynnal, who eased
the squirming boy into an empty cradle.

   “Blynnal?”

   “Ser?”

   “Here’s Dyliess. I
need to go.” Nylan brushed his daughter’s forehead
with his lips.

   “We’ll keep her
safe.” The dark-haired guard and cook took Dyliess, carrypack
and all. “Now, you take care, Ser Mage.”

   “I’ll try.”
Nylan took a last look at the children, trying not to shake his head at
the thought that three of the four were his.

   He headed down the stairs, then stopped
as he saw Siret laying out quivers by the first window to the right of
the south door.

   “Do you have plenty of
arrows?” he asked.

   “Two quivers.”

   “If any of them even look like
they’re getting close, pick them off.” Nylan paused
and pointed to the timbers behind the heavy plank door. “As
soon as the last guard leaves, drop those in place. Don’t
wait. And barricade the north door, too.”

   “I will, Father Brood
Hen.” Siret gave him a crooked grin.
“I’ll even close all the tower shutters and windows
except the ones that Istril and I are using to shoot from.
She’s up on the fourth level. That way we have two different
angles.”

   “See that you keep them
closed,” Nylan said with mock gruffness. He turned to go.

   “Ser?”

   Nylan turned back to meet the deep green
eyes.

   “I’m glad you took a
moment. I’ll tell Istril.”

   A dull thump echoed through the lower
level, followed by a second thump, and then a third. They both looked
toward the north side of the tower.

   Relyn strolled forward from the north
door. “The north door’s barricaded. So is the
outside door to the bathhouse, but they could break through that pretty
quickly.” He slipped on the clamp and the knife over his
hook, then the wooden sheath. “I hope I don’t have
to use these.”

   So did Nylan.

   “I’d better
go.” The engineer-smith nodded to both, and slipped out the
south door, hurrying uphill.

   In the east, the sun hung just above the
great forest beyond the drop-off, and tendrils of mist cloaked the
taller distant firs. Nylan turned uphill. To the west, the morning mist
was still rising off the hills.

   As he half walked, half ran up the road,
Nylan realized one other thing. The warning triangle had never rung.
Then, he nodded. Gerlich knew what the triangle meant.

   By the time he reached the stable, almost
all the guards were mounted, and the three who had left the
tower’s great room with Saryn were riding farther up the
canyon behind the former second pilot.

   Llyselle held the reins of the brown mare
for Nylan. “We thought you’d need this,
ser.”

   Nylan, still breathing heavily, shook his
head. His slowness in saddling his mounts was unfortunately all too
well known.

   “Follow your squad
leaders!” ordered Ryba.

   Nylan swung himself up into the saddle,
the scabbard on his right side banging against the side of his leg as
he thrust it across the saddle.

   “Squad one!” Fierral
raised her blade.

   Across the grim-faced riders, Nylan
caught Ayrlyn’s eyes and pantomimed the question,
“Which squad?”

   Ayrlyn shrugged.

   “Let’s go,”
called Fierral, and almost a dozen riders followed her. The remainder
followed Ryba.

   After a moment of hesitation, Nylan rode
after Ryba’s group, where he and Ayrlyn brought up the rear.

   “Do you know the
plan?” he asked quietly.

   “Not exactly. Gerlich is coming
down the second canyon, and they’ll try to use the ledges to
pick them off, some anyway, before they can get out of the canyon.
Saryn’s supposed to get the ones headed for the stable, and
then rejoin the main group.”

   “Not terribly well
organized,” mused Nylan.

   “How can it be? Ryba
can’t station people everywhere eight-days on end. What if
Gerlich never showed up? She’s probably got plans for a dozen
different cases.”

   “Still, it seems risky going
put after him.”

   “It is, and Gerlich probably
would have trouble cracking the tower. But we couldn’t
survive another winter without livestock and mounts, and he knows
it.”

   Nylan nodded. So, to protect the
outbuildings and what they contained, the guards had to take the fight
to Gerlich, before he knew it. He also realized why ancient castles
held everything-a realization that, as seemed all too frequent, came
too late.

   “Pickets here!”
called Fierral. The newest guards- Denize, Liethya, Miergin, and
Quilyn-served as pickets, holding mounts ready, as the more experienced
guards, or at least those more trained, swarmed up the ropes already
fastened in place on the slope.

   Nylan nodded as he dismounted and handed
the mare’s reins to Quilyn. Maybe things weren’t so
disorganized. He and Ayrlyn were the last on top of the ridgelike
overlook.

   “Down,” whispered
Ryba.

   Nylan went to his knees. So did Ayrlyn.

   Ryba had lined up the guards in two rows,
sitting or kneeling, behind the low scrub on a flat ledge that
overlooked the widening opening of the second canyon. Fierral was
crouched at the uphill end, Ryba at the lower end.

   Nylan studied the placement-hardly ideal,
since the canyon walls were too steep for anything but a mountain goat
farther uphill and since Gerlich’s troops only would be in a
field of arrow fire for a short time.- Still, if attrition were the
idea, it might work, because it would take time for Gerlich’s
armsmen to circle the hills, assuming they knew from where the arrows
came.

   “Listen!” hissed
Ryba. “You fire four arrows-just four- as accurately as you
can. You know which row to aim for. Then you bat-ass down to your
mounts and form up, just like we practiced. Now… quiet. We
wait.”

   Nylan had no bow. That was no great loss,
since his accuracy with the weapon was less than most of the guards,
especially at a distance, and the number of bows-the good composite
ones-was limited. Besides, with everything else, he had scarcely
practiced with the bow since winter.

   He looked at Ayrlyn, also without a bow,
and motioned to the ropes behind them. “We leave after they
start to fire,” he mouthed.

   She raised her eyebrows.

   Nylan repeated his words, and she nodded.

   The sun, early as it was, warmed
Nylan’s back, but the end of the canyon remained in shadow.

   Nylan nodded again as he realized Ryba
had planned better than he had thought. Gerlich’s troops
would come around the final turn in the canyon with their eyes facing
right into the rising sun. Nylan bet the big hunter hadn’t
even considered that fact, but he hadn’t the slightest doubts
that Ryba had. When it came to using force, she tried to consider
everything.

   The sun climbed a bit higher, and the air
remained still. Not even a bird chirped, and Nylan worried about that.
Would Gerlich sense the unnatural quiet?

   The faintest of clinks echoed across the
rocks.

   Ryba raised her hand, and nearly a score
of guards nocked arrows, but Ryba kept her hand just above shoulder
level.

   A single rider turned the corner into the
low-angled sunlight, his hand up to shield his eyes. Two more followed,
their mounts walking easily. Ryba’s hand remained up until
more than a score of armsmen squinted their way into the sunlight.

   Then her hand snapped down.

   The second snap was that of bowstrings.

   Nylan saw several riders pitch forward
and one reach for a shaft through his upper arm.

   “Arrows!” came
Gerlich’s bellow. The big man dropped down low on his mount
almost as the shafts flew. “Follow me!”

   Nylan scrambled back and down the rope,
noting just as he ducked that the armsman he thought was Narliat had
‘gone down with at least two shafts through him. The white
wizard and his mount vanished, just as the one had in the very first
battle on the Roof of the World.

   Nylan came down the hillside in a haze of
dust and struggled up into his saddle, trying to get the mare moving
toward the canyon mouth, realizing that, for all Ryba’s
training, the guards might be too slow if someone weren’t
near the canyon mouth to slow the attacking armsmen.

   He leaned back and whacked the
mare’s flank, and she jumped forward so quickly that Nylan
almost lurched backward out of the saddle. He grabbed the front rim of
the saddle with his free hand and levered himself forward, wondering
what he was doing trying to hold off a charge of horsemen by himself.

   Another horse drew up beside him on his
right. “Demon-damned way to run a battle,” yelled
Ayrlyn. “Not exactly the best people to blunt an
attack,” he answered without looking at her, just doing his
best to guide the mare around the rocky hill and toward the mouth of
the canyon.

   He glanced ahead to his right. The canyon
opening was ahead, and none of the attackers had emerged. Maybe Ryba
had planned it right. He hazarded a quick glance over his shoulder. At
least a handful of guards were mounted and following them.

   He looked back ahead, and the first
armsman came charging out of the canyon, almost without seeing Ayrlyn,
lost in the glare of the early sun. Although the invader turned toward
her and raised a long blade, she slipped under it, and her own blade
flashed, driving into the angle between chest and neck. Blood welled up
everywhere, as did a white haze that shivered the healer where she
rode, even as she beat back a feeble thrust from the dying armsman by
instinct.

   “Back off!” called
Nylan, knowing that she could not see. That white impact of death had
seemingly shivered against him, against his blade, but he shook it off.
He hadn’t done the killing, and that helped.

   Another handful of riders rode out of the
canyon, circling south, so as to avoid riding straight into the sun,
and reforming into a line.

   Behind him, Nylan could hear hoofbeats.
He hoped there were enough.

   An arrow arched over him and toward the
invaders, but passed through them. Nylan half wondered who was good
enough even to shoot while riding. That took two free hands, and half
the time, he needed one hand to grab the mare’s mane or the
saddle to keep from getting jounced off.

   A firebolt hhissssed past Nylan, its heat
skin-searing. The wizard had reappeared beside Gerlich, who waved the
big sword in Nylan’s general direction.

   Another firebolt flared across the
distance between the mounted groups.

   Aeeeüi!

   The sickening scream was cut short, as if
by a knife.

   “Aim for the wizard!”
ordered Nylan, and almost immediately several shafts arrowed toward the
white-clad man.

   Nylan could sense the white wizard
throwing up some short of shields, and parts of the arrows flared into
flame. The arrowheads tumbled forward untouched.

   “More!” snapped Ryba.
“He can’t use his powers while cold
iron’s flying at him.”

   How did Ryba know that? wondered Nylan.
It made sense, but how had she known?

   HHHssstttt!

   Another of the wizard’s
firebolts flared toward Ryba, and she raised her blade and half ducked,
half parried it.

   “To the tower!”
ordered Gerlich, spearheading a wedge of horsemen aimed slightly to the
left of the center of the guards.

   The invading horsemen charged forward,
and the wizard vanished. Nylan extended his senses, probing for the
wizard… and finding him behind a wall of unseen white.
Maybe… maybe, he could do something like that, or figure out
a way to break down-

   “Nylan!”

   At the scream, Nylan blinked, then lifted
his blade as a bearded armsman bore down. The engineer wanted to turn
and flee, but he’d just get himself cut down from behind.

   Nylan barely managed to get the blade up
to deflect the smashing blow, and his entire arm ached. He urged the
mare sideways, raising his own weapon again, and hacking the bearded
man, who caught Nylan’s blade with the big crowbar. Again,
Nylan’s arm shivered, but he actually gouged a chunk of iron
from the huge sword.

   He wished he had had the time to try his
shield idea, but the armsman brought the huge blade around in a
sweeping, screaming arc, and the engineer was forced back in the
saddle. He could no longer see what else was happening, though he could
feel the lines of white-red force flying toward and around Ryba.

   Almost automatically, as the attacking
armsman overbalanced, Nylan felt the moves that Saryn and Ryba had
drilled into him taking over, and his blade flashed-once…
twice.

   The bearded man’s surprised
look stayed on his dead face, even as the white shock of his death
shivered through Nylan.

   “Move, ser! Move!”

   At the sound of Huldran’s
voice, Nylan forced his eyes back open, despite the needles of pain
that shivered through them, and weakly lifted his blade. Three guards
had swept in before him and seemed to hold back twice their number.

   His guts churned, and his eyes burned.
His arm just hurt.

   Another armsman rode up, circling toward
Huldran’s blind side, and Nylan, again mostly reacting, threw
the heavy balanced blade, and immediately grabbed for his second blade.

   As the thrown blade sliced through the
armsman’s chest, Nylan’s fingers groped for, and
almost lost, his other blade. For a moment he sat on the mare,
paralyzed, knives of liquid lightning stabbing through his eyes, and
lines of ionized fire streaming down his arms.

   He forced his blade up, but, for the
moment, it wasn’t needed. The last armsman attacking Cessya
wheeled his mount, turned, and started to flee. Cessya threw one of her
blades through his back, then rode after the trotting mount to reclaim
it.

   HHHssttt!

   Nylan’s stomach churned as the
ashes that had been Cessya flared into the morning air, but he forced
himself to turn the mare toward the white-clad figure and raised his
remaining blade. “Let’s go.”

   Extending his perceptions again, ignoring
the fire that ran through his body, he let the mare trot forward,
afraid a run would jolt him right out of the saddle.

   Huldran rode on his right, Weindre on his
left, and two others he didn’t look back to identify slightly
behind.

   Another firebolt flared, but Nylan raised
his blade, using his senses somehow to deflect it.

   A third firebolt slammed at Nylan,
cascading around his blade, and almost singeing his hair.

   The engineer felt as though he were
riding in slow motion, but he kept moving, holding the blade like a
talisman, ignoring the soreness in his muscles as he and the guards
narrowed the distance between them and the wizard.

   Two firebolts, in quick succession,
flashed toward them, but Nylan, with his senses, eased them aside.

   As the white wizard saw the guards
beating their way through the armsmen, he glanced left, then right, and
squinted.

   Nylan could feel the sense of distortion,
the wrenching feeling twisting at his sight, and he fought it,
muttering under his breath, “I will. I will see what is. I
will… will…”

   His head seemed to split as unseen lines
of fire stretched from the wizard to him, but he held firm, his eyes
blurring, only knowing that the wizard’s defenders were
melting under the flashing, often crudely hacking, blades of the
Westwind guards.

   Suddenly, the wizard turned his mount and
started to gallop away. Two blades flashed through the air. One struck,
almost a glancing blow, Nylan thought, but the wizard almost seemed to
disintegrate.

   “Get those blades!”
ordered Huldran.

   Nylan, ignoring the blinding knives that
accompanied each glance at the bodies strewn across the area around the
fields, and the gash in his arm that he had not even noticed before,
urged the mare toward the knot of armsmen besieging Ryba and the guards
around her.

   As the two guards reclaimed their blades,
Huldran, Weindre, and Nylan rode over the corner of the bean field
toward the dust-shrouded figures struggling in the mid-morning light.

   Gerlich loomed over the group, and his
blade cleared a guard from her mount, almost bisecting her.

   Nylan winced at the additional pain of
more death, but leaned forward in the saddle, still gripping his blade.

   “Now, we’ll see,
Angel and Marshal!” yelled Gerlich, spurring his mount toward
Ryba, pushing aside one of his own armsmen as he came up on her left
side, the huge blade spinning like night toward the marshal, even as
she turned.

   The dark-haired leader dived sideways as
the blade clove through the neck of the roan. The big red horse
crumbled, but Ryba tucked and rolled out, staggering erect into a space
in the midst of the dust and horses.

   One of Ryba’s arms hung loosely
as Gerlich wheeled his mount toward her.

   Her shoulders slumped, and Nylan watched
helplessly. Gerlich’s blade rose again.

   At the last moment, the forgotten
slug-thrower came up… and four even shots stitched four
welts of red across Gerlich’s chest. The big blade slipped
from his fingers as his mouth dropped open.

   As the ten or so armsmen turned, as if to
attack the dismounted marshal, Saryn lifted both her blades. Each
glittered like black fire in the midday sun, each impossibly reflecting
the sun. Saryn and the half-dozen guards beside her charged the
remaining armsmen, splitting off half the group and backing them away
from Ryba. The guards’ black blades glittered in the late
morning light, glimmered like black fire.

   A second group of five guards, led by
Fierral, formed a tight circle around Ryba against nearly twice their
number.

   Nylan turned toward Ryba’s
attackers, and the mare pulled up short, almost slamming into an
armsman’s mount from behind. As the man turned, seemingly in
slow motion, Nylan’s iron blade slashed.

   With the cold white of another death,
Nylan shuddered, and his senses screamed.

   No matter how hard he tried to hold on,
the engineer could feel himself slumping in the saddle, almost in slow
motion, as the power of that exploding whiteness slammed into him, and
his fingers grasped at the mare’s mane, trying to hold on.
Trying…

 

 

CXI

 

ZELDYAN SITS NEARLY upright in the rocking chair, Nesslek on
her shoulder, patting him as he cries. “Now…
now…” She nods to Sillek. “What did
Terek tell you? You went running out of here like the Westhorns had
burst into flame.”

   Sillek looks down at the uneaten remnants
of his midday meal. “I’m worried.”

   “That is obvious.”
She continues to pat Nesslek.

   Her son arches his back slightly and
gives an uuurpppp.

   “There… does little
Nesslek’s tummy feel better? There…”
Zeldyan raises an eyebrow. “Does this have to do with your
adventuresome wizard’s exploits?”

   “He’s dead. Somehow
they turned his wizardry back on him and cut him down with cold
iron.” Sillek stands and walks to the window, his eyes
looking toward the fields filled with grain turning gold, a gold he
does not see though his eyes rest upon the fields. “They have
demon blades-or angel blades-or something. Hissl threw his fire at the
head angel, and she turned it with her blade. I didn’t see it
in the glass, but Terek swears it happened.”

   “Do you believe him?”

   Nesslek whimpers again, and Zeldyan
brings him up to her shoulder, patting him once more.

   “I’ve never seen him
look that shaken.”

   “How many of Hissl’s
armsmen survived?”

   “A handful, if that. They were
led by a big man who was one of the best I’ve seen. He had a
big blade, as big as my father’s, and he used it like a
toothpick. It wasn’t enough.”

   “What about the
angels?”

   Sillek turns from the sunlight and the
window. “They lost some. How many I couldn’t say,
but there seem to be as many as before. Their leader was wounded, but
she was still giving orders. I don’t know about their mage.
They were carrying him off the field, but the glass didn’t
show any blood. Terek thinks he was only stunned, says that he tied
Hissl’s magic in knots at the end.”

   “You’re very
worried.”

   “You know why,”
Sillek answers. “They’ll get more women after this.
They know how to train them. They have blades that turn
wizards’ fire and cut through plate armor. They have bows
that send arrows through anything. I have Ildyrom stirring up* rumors
that I’m a coward, and that I intend to turn Lornth over to
the women. I have my own holders who will demand that I destroy this
abomination, and what will I get out of it?” Sillek snorts.
“If I’m unlucky, I’m dead. If
I’m lucky, I’ll win a victory that will destroy me.
To win, I’ll need to raise an army-not a force, but an army
as big as the one that took Rulyarth-and I can’t pull your
father out of Rulyarth, or the forces that support him. So I need more
mercenaries and levies, and both are expensive. That means a tax on the
holders. Who else has got coins? That will make them mad, and they
won’t remember that it’s their bitching that
created the mess.”

   “It is that bad,
isn’t it?”

   Nesslek burps again before his father can
respond.

   “It’s worse. I hate
those women. Just by existing, they’re going to destroy me,
one way or another.”

   “No they won’t. Life
is never easy, but you can defeat them. I know you don’t want
to, and I don’t, either, but we don’t want a holder
revolt, either.” Zeldyan smiles. “When you come
back, then you certainly won’t have any trouble with
Ildyrom.”

   “No. That’s true. One
way or another I won’t have to worry about
Ildyrom.” He walks over to the chair. “Let me take
Nesslek. You haven’t had a bite to eat, and all
I’ve done is talk.”

   “Careful,” says
Zeldyan with a laugh. “You shouldn’t let anyone see
you acting like a nursemaid.”

   “Bother that,”
mutters Sillek, lifting Nesslek up to his shoulder.
“I’m a nursemaid to all those holders who are
afraid that, if those women survive up on that mountain, they
won’t be able to keep beating their own up.”

   “I never would have thought
you’d say that.”

   “I’ve learned a lot
from you.” Sillek pats his son on the back and smiles at
Zeldyan.

 

 

CXII

 

WHEN NYLAN WOKE, he was lying on his lander cot bed. The light
from the windows, while dim, burned through his eyes. He turned his
head slightly, eyes slit, and a sledge smashed across his temples.
Whiteness and blackness washed over him for a time, and he lay
motionless, eyes closed, until the hammering and the knives that
slashed at his eyes subsided.

   Slowly, without moving his head, he eased
his eyes open.

   The gentle creaking of the cradle seemed
more like the rumbling of a mill beside his head, and
Dyliess’s breathing like a high wind that whipped through the
tower.

   Ryba sat in the rocking chair, one arm
bound tightly in a sling, the other rocking the cradle. The left side
of her face was scraped and blackish blue, with thin red lines running
across her cheek.

   “You…”
rasped Nylan. His eyes still burned.

   “I know,” she said.
“You look almost as bad. They had to pry your fingers out of
your poor mount’s mane.”

   Nylan tried to move his fingers. They
were stiff, sore. His head throbbed even with the attempted movement.

   “You don’t look that
wonderful,” he said after a time.

   “It’s not too bad. It
was only dislocated, but badly. Istril has some of the healing talent.
It must go with the silver hair. It’s a good thing, too,
because whatever you did to that wizard backfired all over both you and
Ayrlyn. Last time I looked she was flattened like you.”

   “No…”
Nylan tried to moisten his lips. “I got… through
the wizard. It was the killing. Killing’s hard on me, hard on
healers.”

   “The killing was the easy
part,” said Ryba, as though she had not even heard
Nylan’s last words. “Getting guards trained is the
hard thing, and making sure they do what they’re supposed to.
These women, half are scared to lift a blade against a man. Got to
change that.” She coughed, wincing.

   “Sore ribs, too?”

   “I don’t notice you
doing much moving.”

   “If I did, my head would fall
off,” Nylan admitted.

   “Denize, she froze, just sat
there on her mount,” Ryba continued, again almost as though
she had not heard Nylan. “They hacked her apart, and I
couldn’t reach her in time. De-sain, Miergin, and poor
Nistayna, they did their best and it wasn’t enough. The
wizard got Jaseen and Berlis, too.” Ryba shivered, then
stopped rocking the cradle. “Killing’s easy. Too
easy for men.”

   Nylan closed his eyes. He
didn’t feel like arguing. Maybe killing was easy, but feeling
the deaths of those you killed wasn’t. Yet what else could
they have done? He could feel himself drifting back into darkness, and
he let it happen.

 

 

CXIII

 

THE WARM WIND coming through the open windows raised dust off
the floor of the great room, dust that appeared no matter how often the
stones were swept or washed.

   Nylan rested his elbows on the table and
closed his eyes. Finally, he opened them and took a sip of the cold
water. His body still felt as if it had been pummeled in a landslide of
building stones and sharp-edged bricks.

   He couldn’t rest, even though
Ryba and Dyliess were, and Ayrlyn was. So were most of the children. He
took another sip of the water and glanced through the nearest narrow
window slot at the green-blue sky and the scattered clouds of late
summer. Then he held his aching head in his hands.

   Relyn eased into the room. The former
noble wore a hand-dyed black cloak over equally black trousers and
shirt.

   “Relyn?”

   “I came to thank you.”

   “Thank me?” Nylan
wanted to laugh. “For what?”

   “For making things clear,
ser.” Relyn eased onto the bench across the table from Nylan.

   Nylan studied the man in black.
“My head still hurts, and I guess I’m not thinking
too well. Just how did I make things clear?”

   Relyn scratched his head, then rubbed his
nose. “First, I thought you had magic that you brought from
Heaven. When the magic from Heaven died, I thought you had tools from
Heaven. Then I watched as you kept building things, and I thought that
the greatest magic is in a man’s mind.”

   “It helps to have
knowledge,” Nylan said wryly. “Sometimes, the
biggest hurdle is just knowing that something can be done. Or that it
can’t.”

   Relyn smiled apologetically, but did not
speak.

   Nylan took another sip of water.
“Now what are you going to do?” he asked after he
set down the mug.

   “For a time, I will try to
learn more of the way of the Leg-end, and the way of order, so long as
you and the singer will teach me. In time, I will leave and teach
others.”

   “Teach them what?”

   “What I have learned. That what
a man does must be in harmony with what he thinks. That order is the
greatest force of all.” Relyn shrugged. “You
know.”

   Nylan wasn’t sure what he knew.
“That may not make you all that popular, Relyn.”

   “I have already decided that. I
will have to go east, or circle Lornth and go far to the west. I would
not be well received in Lornth, especially after Lornth is
vanquished.”

   “From what the healer has
discovered from the traders, Lord Sillek has hired mercenaries, and has
more resources than ever before. Yet you think he will be
vanquished.” Nylan’s arm swept across the great
room. “We have perhaps a score and a half, twoscore at the
most, and how many will he bring? Fivescore? Six? Twentyscore?
Fortyscore?”

   “They will not be
enough.” Relyn smiled. “Three more women arrived at
Tower Black today. There was one yesterday, and two the day before.
They brought blades, and some brought coins. One rode up bringing her
own packhorse loaded with goods. She was willing to give them to the
angel even if she could not stay.”

   Nylan took a deep breath. “The
women of this world are fed up.”

   “If I understand you, that is
true.” Relyn’s smile vanished. “The
longer Lord Sillek waits, the more guards and goods Westwind will have.
Two of those who rode up today already had their own blades and could
use them.”

   “I’m afraid that is
why your Lord Sillek will not wait.”

   “He is not my Lord Sillek. A
disowned man has no lord. That is one of the few benefits.”
Relyn laughed. “And few would attack a one-armed man, for
there is no honor in that. So, when the time comes, I will
depart.”

   “Why don’t you leave
now?”

   “I would see the destruction of
Lornth. Then I can tell the world of the power of the Legend.”

   “You have a great deal of
faith.” Far more than I do, thought Nylan. Far more.

   “No. This is something I
know.” Relyn slipped off the bench. “You are tired,
and I would not weary you more.”

   For a time, Nylan sat, eyes closed, but
his head ached, and he did not feel sleepy. Relyn was talking as though
Ayrlyn and Nylan were the prophets of some new faith, and that bothered
the smith, as if his head didn’t hurt enough already.

   Finally, he stood and walked to the open
south door and crossed the causeway. The large cairn was now twice its
former length, and Nylan could no longer distinguish the separate
smaller cairns that dotted the southeast section of the meadow, almost
opposite the mouth of the second canyon from which Gerlich’s
men had poured.

   A crew of new guards, led by Saryn, had
already blocked the narrow passage at the upper end of the canyon and
erected a small and hidden watchtower that overlooked the trail leading
there.

   How much did you let happen, Ryba,
wondered Nylan, because you dared not risk going against your visions?
Maybe… maybe there are worse things than feeling deaths. Is
feeling the deaths of those I killed so difficult compared to your
causing deaths that may have been unnecessary-and knowing that those
deaths may have been unnecessary… and living with those
deaths forever?

   A small figure sat on the end of the
causeway wall, looking toward the cairns. Suddenly, she turned and
asked, “Why didn’t you save Mother?”

   Nylan tried not to recoil from the
directness of the question.

   After a moment, he said slowly,
“I tried to save as many as I could.” By killing as
many of the invaders as I could, he added to himself.

   “They weren’t
Mother.” Niera’s dark eyes bored into Nylan.
“They weren’t Mother. The angel let the other
mothers stay in the tower.”

   “Did your mother wish to stay
in the tower?”

   “No. You and the angel should
have made her stay!”

   Nylan had no ready answer for that, not a
totally honest one, but he continued to meet the girl’s eyes.
Then he said, “Perhaps we should have, but I cannot change
what should have been.”

   At that, Niera turned and looked at the
cairns, and her thin frame shook. Nylan stepped up beside her, and
lightly touched her shoulder. Without looking, she pushed his hand
away. So he just stood there while she silently sobbed.

 

 

CXIV

 

A STIFF AND cool breeze, foreshadowing fall, swept from the
sunlit meadows and fields through the open and newly hung doors of the
smithy. With the air came the scent of cut grass, of dust raised by the
passing horses, and of recently sawn fir timbers. Inside, the air
smelled of hot metal, forge coals, and sweat-of burned impurities,
scalded quench steam, and oil.

   Nylan brought the hammer down on the
faintly red alloy, scattering sparklets of oxides. The anvil-a real
anvil, heavy as ice two on a gas giant, if battered around the
edges-and the hammer rang. Nylan couldn’t help smiling.

   “Is it good?” asked
Ayrlyn. “I’ve been looking for one all summer. I
got this from a widow not far from Gnotos.”

   “It’s good. Very
good. It feels good.”

   “You look happy when you work
here, when you build or make things, and I can almost feel the order
you put in them.”

   “You two,” said
Huldran, easing more charcoal into the forge. “You talk about
feeling. It’s as though you feel what you do more than you
see it.”

   “He does,” said
Ayrlyn. “He can sense the grain of the metal.”

   Nylan grinned at the healer.
“She can sense sickness in the body.”

   Huldran shook her head, and the short
blond hair flared away from her face. “I’ve always
thought that. I don’t think I really wanted to know. With the
laser, I figured that was because it was like the engineer’s
powernet… Is all the magic in this place like that,
something that has to be felt, that can’t really be
seen?”

   “In a way you can see
it,” responded Ayrlyn, brushing the flame-red hair back over
her ear. “It’s a flow. If it’s good,
it’s smooth, like a dark current in a river.”

   “I don’t know that
it’s really magic,” mused Nylan, looking at the
cooling metal and then taking the tongs to slip it back into the forge.
As the lander alloy reheated, his eyes flicked to the iron that had
come from a broken blade. It waited by the forge for the next step of
his blade-making when he would have to flatten the two and then start
hammer-folding them together and drawing them out-only to refold and
draw, refold and draw. If only the smithing weren’t for
blades… He licked his lips and then he continued.
“You can feel-”

   “You can. I
can’t,” pointed out Huldran.

   “You may be better off that you
can’t in some ways,” replied Ayrlyn.

   “You can feel,” Nylan
repeated, “flows of two kinds of energies. Apparently, the
ones I can use are the black ones, or at least they say I’m a
black wizard, and you can build and heal, or they help build and heal.
The stuff the wizard that came with Gerlich had, and Relyn thinks he
was the same one that was in the first attack, is white, and it feels
ugly, and tinged with red. It’s almost like the chaotic
element in a powernet, the fluxes that aren’t that can still
tear a net apart. Well, that’s what the firebolts he was
throwing felt like.”

   “Like a powernet chaos
flux?” asked Ayrlyn with a slight wince.

   “Worse, in some
ways.” Nylan looked at the alloy on the coals, barely red,
but that was as hot as it was going to get. Initially, working with it
was a cross between hot and cold forging, and slow as a glacier on
Heaven. “I’ve got to get back to this. With all
these recruits showing up, the marshal wants more blades, and Saryn
wants more arrowheads.”

   “You know, ser,”
pointed out Huldran. “I could use the old anvil to make
arrowheads or whatever, and we could bring in some help with the tongs
and bellows.”

   Nylan nodded, ruefully. “I
should have thought of that.”

   “Does this mean we really need
another anvil?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “Well…”
began Nylan. “Since you asked…”

   “I search and search and
finally get you an anvil, and now you want two.” Ayrlyn gave
an overdramatic sigh. “Nothing’s ever enough, is
it?”

   “No. But no one pays any
attention when I say it. We make hundreds of arrowheads, arrowheads
that really ought to be cast, and Saryn and Fierral just want more.
Ryba wants more blades.” Nylan gave back an equally
overdramatic sigh and pulled the metal from the coals and eased it onto
the anvil. “And it’s time to work on this
blade.” He looked at Huldran. “I can handle this
alone. You go find an assistant. One, to begin with.”

   “I
thought…” began the blond guard.

   “Rule three hundred of obscure
leadership. If it’s your idea, you get to implement
it.”

   Ayrlyn laughed. After a moment, so did
Huldran.

   Nylan lifted the hammer.

   The cooling wind swept into the smithy,
bringing with it the sound of the sheep on the hillside, the shouted
instructions, and the clatter of wooden wands from the space outside
the tower. The hammer fell on the alloy that would be the heart of yet
another blade for the guards of Westwind.

   Ayrlyn looked at the hammer, the anvil,
and the face of the engineer-smith and shivered. Neither Nylan nor
Huldran saw the shiver or the darkness behind her eyes.

 

 

CXV

 

SILLEK STEPS INTO the small upper tower room after a
preemptory knock.

   The mists in the glass vanish, and Terek
stands. Despite the heat in the room and the lack of wind from the two
open and narrow windows, the white wizard appears cool.

   Sillek blots the dampness from his
forehead, but remains standing.

   “I have but a few moments, Ser
Wizard, but since we last talked,” asks Sillek,
“what have you discovered about the angel women on the Roof
of the World?”

   “Discovering matters through a
glass is slow and difficult. One sees but dimly.”

   “Dimly or not, you must have
discovered something.”

   “Hissl was correct in one
particular,” Terek admits slowly. “The angel women
have no thunder-throwers remaining.”

   “What else have you
discovered?” asks Sillek.

   “He underestimated the talents
of the black mage.”

   “We knew that. Anything
else?”

   “The black mage is a smith, and
even without his fires from Heaven he can forge those devil blades that
seem able to slice through plate and chain mail. He and his assistant
are also forging arrowheads.”

   “Forging? That is
odd.”

   Terek shrugs. “It is slow, but
the arrowheads are like the blades, much stronger, and they can cut
some mail.”

   “Can you tell how many of these
angels there are?”

   “There are more than twoscore,
perhaps threescore, women on the Roof of the World. A dozen or so
remain of the original angels, and only the one man.”

   Sillek nods. “Then we should
have less trouble than my sire.”

   “I would not be that
certain,” offers Terek. “Those who remain seem very
good, and they are spending much time training the newcomers. I am not
an armsman, but it seems to me that they are very good at teaching our
women, or those who were our women before they fled Lornth. Some of the
women who fled to the angels killed quite a few of Hissl’s
armsmen.”

   Sillek purses his lips. “That
would mean that the longer we wait, the better the forces they will
have?”

   “You would know that better
than I, ser.” Terek shrugs. “I can tell that the
mage is also getting stronger. He is also building something else, it
appears to be a mill of some sort. Their smithy is largely complete,
and they seem to have more livestock.”

   “Demons!” Sillek
looks at the blank glass and then at Terek. His voice softens slightly.
“I am not angry at you, Terek.”

   “I understand, ser. This
situation is not… what it might be.”

   “No. It’s
not.” Sillek offers a head bow. “Thank
you.”

   After he. leaves the tower room, Sillek
adjusts the heavy green ceremonial tunic and heads for the Great Hall.

   By the side entrance, Genglois waits for
him. “You have a moment, ser?”

   “I suppose so. Do we know what
this envoy of Karthanos wants?”

   Genglois shrugs, and his jowls wobble as
his shoulders fall. “It is said he has brought a heavy chest
with him.”

   “That’s not good.
It’s either a veiled threat or a bribe. Or both, which would
be even worse.” The Lord of Lornth stands for a moment,
motionless, then opens the door and steps into the hall, where he walks
to the dais and sits on the green cushion-the only soft part of the
dark wooden high-backed chair that dates nearly to the founding of
Lornth. He gestures.

   A trumpet sounds, and the end doors open.

   “Ser Viendros of Gallos, envoy
from Lord Karthanos, Liege Lord of Gallos and Protector of the
Plains.” The voice of the young armsman - in - training
almost cracks.

   As Viendros marches in followed by two
husky and weaponless armsmen carrying a small but heavy chest, Sillek
stands and waits for the swarthy envoy to reach the dais.

   Viendros offers a deep bow, not shallow
enough to be insulting nor deep enough to be mocking, then straightens.
“Your Lordship.”

   “Welcome, Ser Viendros.
Welcome.” Sillek gestures to the chair beside his. As he
does, the armsman behind him turns his heavy chair. “Please
be seated. You have had a long journey.”

   Viendros offers a head bow. “My
thanks, Lord Sillek.” He sits without further ceremony, as
does Sillek.

   “What brings you to
Lornth?”

   “My lord Karthanos would wish
to ensure that you do not misunderstand the events of earlier this
summer. I was sent to convey both his deepest apologies, and his
regrets, and his tokens of apology.”

   Sillek forces his face to remain polite,
his voice even. “Misunderstandings do occur, and we are more
than willing to help resolve them.”

   Viendros glances around the Great Hall,
then lowers his voice slightly. “I am not an envoy by choice,
My Lord. I do not know the fancy words. I was sent because I am an
armsman from a long family of those who have served Gallos.”

   “Gallos has been well served by
those who bear its blades,” Sillek agrees.

   “Lord Karthanos was-how can I
say it?-surprised by the unfortunate occurrence which befell your sire
on the Roof of the World. He was further… upset, if I might
be frank, that you chose to do nothing about that occurrence,
especially when it became clear that the evil angels were luring women
from Lornth to the Roof of the World. With the best of intentions, that
of assisting you in regaining control of that portion of your realm, he
dispatched a small force, well armed.” Viendros takes a deep
breath. “My brother was the chief armsman of that force. He
did not return.”

   “I understand few
returned,” Sillek says quietly.

   “Lord Karthanos also
understands that a force led by one of your wizards recently traveled
to the Roof of the World and failed to return.”

   “That is true,”
Sillek admits. “Although I must point out that while that
effort had my blessing, it was not backed by my coin or men.”

   Viendros swallows. “This is
difficult, you understand. I know that your sire and Lord Karthanos had
other… misunderstandings in the past, but such…
misunderstandings should be put aside, if possible.”

   “What does your lord have in
mind?” asks Sillek.

   Viendros holds up his right hand.
“A few words more, first, if you please.” He clears
his throat. “Lord Karthanos was fortunate to have a wizard,
not so powerful as yours, but one skilled with the glass, and thus Lord
Karthanos saw a portion of the battle. I would call it a slaughter
myself,” added Viendros. “Now, after seeing that
fight, he understands the cruel position in which fate has placed you.
He also understands the reasons for your ignoring the Roof of the World
while reclaiming the ancient right to the river to the Northern
Ocean.”

   Sillek nods and waits.

   “Lornth is respected, most
respected, and Lord Karthanos has been most impressed with the manner
in which you have conducted your armsmen. Yet you have refrained from
attacking the Roof of the World until your borders were more secure to
the west and the north. Again, this appears most wise, especially
considering the might of arms of the angels. Yet my lord Karthanos is
greatly concerned-”

   “As am I,” interjects
Sillek. “You may understand, however, that it will take a
considerable force to subdue the angels, and one removed a great
distance from Lornth itself.”

   “Yes. This also occurred to
Lord Karthanos.” Viendros turned to the armsmen who stand by
the chest. “The chest contains a thousand golds for your use
in reclaiming the Roof of the World.” Viendros withdraws a
scroll and extends it. “I am also bid to tell you that Lord
Karthanos will place score forty armsmen under your orders for this
campaign. All will be paid from his treasury. They will be under my
command, and subject to your orders.”

   “That is most
brotherly… and most generous,” says Sillek.
“I am overwhelmed.”

   Viendros snorts. “I am not a
diplomat, Lord Sillek. It is not generous. It is a necessity. Those
women have already created much trouble, both for Gallos and for
Lornth, and those troubles will only get worse. You cannot, without the
support of Lord Ildyrom and Lord Karthanos, afford to hazard your
forces so far from Lornth. Nor would Lord Karthanos expect that, given
the surprising abilities of these strange angels.” The
envoy/armsman shrugs. “There you have it.”

   “Yes, we do.” Sillek
smiles, a warm smile, yet somehow distant. “Will you remain
with me to assist in planning this campaign, or will we meet later to
discuss the particulars?”

   “I am at your immediate
disposal.”

   “Then let us find something to
eat.” Sillek rises. “We have much to do before the
rains of autumn arrive.”

   Viendros smiles, the smile of an armsman
awaiting a mighty battle.

 

 

CXVI

 

NYLAN STUDIED THE timber that would be the shaft linking the
unbuilt wheel with the unforged collar. The shaft, a smoothed and
peeled log, lay on the clay next to the wall that would hold it.

   With the charcoal stick Nylan made a
template on the wooden disc he had brought for the purpose, noting the
dimensions with one of the pocket rules from the landers. Then he
wrapped the disk in a rag and carried it to the brown mare, where he
eased it into a saddlebag.

   Then he walked back up on the mill
foundation and surveyed the layout again. He frowned. Bearings-he
really needed bearings-but a grease collar would have to do.

   “You don’t like it,
after all this work?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “It’s fine. I was
thinking about bearings. And about the wheel itself. And the gears we
need to get the blade moving fast enough to cut.” His eyes
darted to the millpond walls, and the water sluicing out of the open
gate, and then to the nearly completed millrace where Weindre and
Quilyn were laying the last stones.

   Next would come the actual walls, built
up from the mill’s foundation, and eventually the mill
itself, assuming that Nylan could forge or otherwissmake the reducing
and transforming gears, assuming that Ayrlyn and Saryn could build the
mill wheel. Assuming, assuming…

   He wanted to shake his head and scream.
Nothing was ever enough. From brickworks to smithy to sawmill to who
knew what next. From blades to arrows to throwing blades to strange
magic. And with each new building, each new idea, he could sense
ever-growing resistance. Why couldn’t they see?

   “Are you all right?”
asked the healer. Nylan forced himself to take a long slow breath, then
another. “As right as anyone else here, in this crazy world
where nothing is ever enough.”

   Ayrlyn looked at him. “That was
true on Heaven, and I imagine it’s true everywhere, in every
universe that has some form of human being. The general condition of
being human is that nothing satisfies most people for long. Those with
no power want power. Those with power want more power. Those with food
want more food or luxuries. Those with a roof over their heads want a
castle. But everyone wants someone else to do the work.” She
shrugged. “So what else is new?”

   ‘Thanks for cheering me
up.“ He walked down off the mill foundation and toward the
brown mare.

   “Nylan, please don’t
get short with me. I’m not a demon or a local. I
don’t take glory in killing, and I don’t like
weapons, and I’ve more than tried to be helpful.”

   The smith paused. He took another deep
breath. “I’m sorry. What you said upset me. I know
human beings are human beings, but I guess that I felt that the
‘nothing is ever enough’ feelings were the result
of our modern technology, and you’re telling me-rightly, it
appears-that, even when people can barely survive, they’d
still rather kill and plunder because someone else has more. Or build
arsenals of crudely effective weapons because other people feel that
way.” He untied the mare, then climbed into the saddle.

   Ayrlyn mounted the gelding.
“Generally, there’s more charity and less violent
self-interest in more technological societies than in low-tech ones.
You can’t get to high-tech levels without a greater degree of
cooperation-not usually, anyway.”

   “Great. You’re
telling me that technology enables ethics.” He flicked the
reins, and the mare began to walk toward the trail that circled the
cliffs and would eventually lead them to the ridge road.

   “Not exactly. Stop playing
bitter and dumb. You know it’s not that way. Technology
allows, in most cases, comparative abundance. Comparative abundance
means that the powerful and greedy can amass power and goods without
starving substantial chunks of society to death-in some societies,
anyway. Sometimes, it just leads to the technological society being
more merciful to its own underclass while exploiting the light out of
another society. Technology doesn’t make people better.
Sometimes, though, it mitigates their cruelties.”

   “You’re even more
cynical than I am.”

   “You’re not cynical,
Nylan,” Ayrlyn said gently as she rode up beside him.
“You’re angry. You want to know why, because you
thought it would be different here, and it’s not. Power still
rules, and if you want to control your own life, you have to be
powerful. Especially in a low-tech world. Ryba understood that from the
first.”

   “She certainly did.”
Nylan looked at the road ahead, uphill all the way to Westwind.
“She certainly did.”

   “What do you want to do about
it?” asked the healer.

   “I don’t know.
Everyone else has answers.” He flicked the reins.
“Relyn’s turning what I believe into a frigging
religion; Ryba’s turned power into a belief system; Fierral
accepts Ryba as marshal and goddess. Me-I just want to build a safe
place, and I keep finding out that it takes more and more building,
more and more weapons, and more and more killing. We’re in
the most remote place on the continent, and it’s still that
way.”

   “You’re
angry.” Ayrlyn’s voice was soft.
“You’re angry because what you see seems so
obvious, and no one else seems to understand. People want what you
build, but they ever so reluctantly and quietly want to help less and
less.”

   “So I look more and more
unreasonable, more and more obsessed, more and more like a joke,
because people don’t understand what it really takes to build
an infrastructure.” Nylan snorted. “Ryba says
that’s the way it is, and that I have to accept it.
I’m angry because… frig! I don’t know.
There ought to be some way to change it, and I can’t find
it.”

   “You’re a builder,
Nylan, a maker, and you want to make the world better. Everyone else
wants control, not real change.” Ayrlyn paused.
“Except Relyn, and he’s not just founding a new
religion; he’s making you its prophet.”

   “Me?”

   “Who else? Prophets have to be
men.” She shrugged. “This place could use a new
religion, but new religions don’t always follow their
prophet’s words.”

   Nylan shook his head. Relyn
couldn’t be that crazy, could he? The engineer’s
free hand brushed the front rim of the saddle. Then he swallowed.

 

 

CXVII

 

SILLEK MUNCHES THROUGH a honey cake, trying not to scatter too
many crumbs on the small table. From the cradle in the corner of the
sitting room comes an occasional snuffle or snore.

   “I can’t believe it.
I’m here, and he’s actually sleeping.
He’s really sleeping.”

   “He does sleep,”
points out Zeldyan.

   “Not often. Not when
I’m around.” He forces a leer at his blond consort.

   “Later,” she says,
gently taking his hand. “You’re still
upset.”

   “Upset? Me? The oh - so - cool
and disinterested Lord of Lornth. How could I be upset? Lornth is more
prosperous and secure now than in any time in centuries. Is anyone
happy? Of course not. All the holders are ready to throw me out unless
I march an army to the Roof of the World and destroy a tower and
twoscore women, and, yes, one black mage, whose crime seems to be that
he builds good towers, and forges excellent weapons of self-defense.
Actually, they wouldn’t throw me out. They’d
execute me for treason. And you and Nesslek as well, at least Nesslek.
Why? Because they’re afraid that they’ll have to
treat women more like people.

   “If it weren’t for
their demon-damned pigheadedness, we’d be doing well.
We’ve gotten back the grasslands. Your father is getting
Rulyarth organized, and trade duties are beginning to flow in, and soon
your brother can take over there.” Sillek takes a deep pull
of wine from the goblet.

   “Why would you have Fornal
there?” asks Zeldyan.

   “Your father has asked that he
not be my permanent representative there. I could use his counsel
closer, and both Fornal and I could benefit from Fornal’s
service in Rulyarth. So, I imagine, could your father,” adds
Sillek dryly.

   “Yes, Fornal does chafe at
Father’s counsel.” Zeldyan smiles. “But
you really think you must attack the Roof of the World?”

   “No more than fish must swim,
birds fly, and men die, and they will. Between Karthanos, Ildyrom, and
my own beloved holders, I’m going to have to attack the Roof
of the World. Karthanos got rid of any choice I might have had, without
saying a word.”

   “How?” asks Zeldyan.
Her voice conveys that she knows the answer, but she wants Sillek to
speak.

   “He sent me a thousand golds
and offered score forty armsmen, as well as an experienced commander.
What does that tell you about his resources?”

   “Are you suggesting that the
most honorable Karthanos has intimated that, unless you remove the
women from the Roof of the World, he will indeed remove you as Lord of
Lornth?”

   “Unless I overlooked something,
I think that was the message.” Sillek downs the rest of the
wine in a single gulp.

   “Perhaps you should talk to
your mother,” suggests Zeldyan. “She has much
experience in such intricacies.”

   “She’ll only suggest
that I take all the coins and all the armsmen and reclaim my patrimony.
She’s played that tune from the beginning-with all her little
talks with ‘old’ friends and her letters-all the
signs she thinks I’m too stupid to see. And I can do nothing
because all those old friends would agree with her, and I’d
have even more trouble. After all, I only told her not to talk to me of
honor.” He toys with the goblet, then sets it down hard.
“Besides, even I can see I have no choices.”

   “Then let her convince
you,” suggests Zeldyan. “It will make her
happy.”

   “No, only justified, but
it’s a good idea. I don’t know how I managed
without you, dear one.” Sillek laughs, rises, steps around
the table, and lifts her into his arms. “It’s
later, now.”

   “You are impossible.”
But she lifts her lips to his.

 

 

CXVIII

 

DRY DUST SWIRLED Into the smithy, both from the road and from
fields that had not seen rain in more than an eight-day.

   Clung! Clung!

   Nylan struggled with the metal on the
anvil, a chunk of iron that neither looked circular nor like a gear.
Even the hole in the center was lopsided. Finally, he took the tongs
and set the misshapen mass on the forge bricks, then wiped his forehead
with the back of his forearm.

   “Does the whole thing have to
be of metal, ser?” asked Huldran from behind the older,
makeshift anvil, where she continued to hammer out the arrowheads that
ought to have been cast.

   “It would be
stronger.”

   “Couldn’t the wood
people make something like a wheel, with holes in it where you put
through sort of square metal pegs? You could put flanges on the bottom
so they wouldn’t slip out, and a smaller wheel inside the
other.”

   Nylan squinted, trying to visualize what
the blond guard had suggested. Then he shook his head and laughed.
“It would probably work better than what I’ve been
trying to do. In making wooden wheels you can wet-bend the wood. Yes,
it would work.”

   “You think so?”

   Nylan pointed to the misshappen metal.
“Look at that. That’s workable?”

   A thin woman, painfully thin, wearing
leathers from the plunder piles, with dark smears that had been blood,
stepped into the smithy. “Ser?”

   Nylan turned. “Yes.”

   “I was bid… If you
please, ser… the marshal… she…
ser-”

   “I take it that the marshal
requests my presence?” Nylan asked to cut off the painfully
slow speech for the new guard.

   “Yes, ser.”

   “Fine.” He set aside
the hammer. “I assume I’ll be back before too long,
Huldran. Use the good anvil.” Nylan looked back at the
messenger. “I don’t know everyone anymore. Who are
you?”

   “Meyin, ser.”

   “Where are you from?”
The smith stepped from behind the anvil.

   “Dinoz, ser.”

   Nylan had never heard of Dinoz, but
he’d never heard of most of the small towns from which the
new guards had fled. “East or west of the
mountains?”

   “It’s in Gallos,
ser.”

   “Let’s go.”

   Nylan followed Meyin down the road toward
the tower. Nearly a dozen new guard recruits were practicing on the
sparring ground. On the stretch of meadow between the road and the
fields another handful ran through exercises with wands on horseback.

   “Looks more like a boot
camp…” Nylan muttered to himself. “Then
it is.” How long could Ryba build her forces before someone
else decided to take a crack at Westwind? An eight-day? A year? Who
knew?

   Ryba sat behind a small flat table in the
corner of the top level of Tower Black, military and cool-looking in
the gray leathers. She nodded, pushing aside the quill pen and the
scroll. Nylan stepped into the room, and Meyin slipped down the steps,
closing the door behind her.

   As he eased onto the stool,
Nylan’s eyes flicked to the empty cradle.

   “She’s down in the
nursery area with Niera and Antyl.”

   The smith-engineer looked blankly at the
marshal.

   “Antyl’s the one
who’s so pregnant that I couldn’t figure out how
she got here.”

   “Oh, the one with the
burns?”

   Ryba nodded. “What were you
working on?”

   “Gears for the sawmill. I
managed to get the collar for the mill wheel done, but I was having
trouble. Huldran came up with a better idea.” Nylan shrugged.
“I should have thought of it-or asked-sooner.”

   “The sawmill will have to
wait-maybe until next year.”

   “Trouble?”

   “We’ve had trouble
from the day the landers planetfell.” Ryba glanced to the
window, her eyes traveling to the ice needle that was Freyja and then
to the western peaks. “It’s beautiful here. If
they’d just leave us alone-but they won’t.
We’re going to have to win a big battle. Soon.”

   “How big? How soon?”

   “Before mid-fall, perhaps
sooner. I can’t tell yet, but some of the latest recruits
have been bringing tales of armsmen gathering in Lornth, and of lots of
mercenaries being hired. I sent Ayrlyn out to get more supplies, and
more information.”

   “Maybe Lornth expects trouble
elsewhere.” Nylan worried about another scouting run for
Ayrlyn, but forced his concerns to the back of his mind.

   “No.”

   “Visions? Images?”

   “Those and all the scattered
reports.”

   “So we need a superweapon? A
magic sword that slices armsmen in quarters without anyone holding it?
Or perhaps a magic bow?”

   “Nylan.”
Ryba’s voice was as cold as the ice on Freyja.

   “I’m sorry. What am I
supposed to do? Make more blades? Even with better blades, we still
lost a lot of good guards.” He cleared his throat, his eyes
flicking to the window and Freyja, the ice-needle that sometimes seemed
warmer and more approachable than Ryba.

   “We can’t afford
those kinds of losses again,” Ryba said. “Even with
all the new recruits… we can’t train them well
that fast, and half are scared to death of men with weapons. It takes
time to overcome that.”

   Nylan rubbed his forehead. At times,
especially when he thought of weapons, his head still ached.
“Huldran is working on arrowheads. She can’t give
them that final ordering, but she makes good arrowheads. I can make
more, too. I don’t like it, but I can. Or blades. What do you
want?”

   “The weapons laser. I told you
we’d need it for the big battle. How usable is it?”

   “We’ve got one bank
of firm cells left. They’re at about eighty percent and
deteriorating-probably won’t be much good past the coming
winter. The generator’s gone; so we’re stuck with
what we have in the cells.” He looked at the marshal.
“How big a battle?”

   “I don’t know the
exact numbers, but they’ll have enough troops to cover the
ridge fields. They’ll have some siege engines for the tower.
That’s why I told you to save the laser for the battle with
this Lord Sillek. He’s supposedly using all his loot from
taking over that seaport for just two things. Fortifying his hold on
the conquered city… and building up and buying
armsmen.”

   “The laser won’t be
enough, then.” Nylan massaged his forehead again.
“We need some defensive emplacements. I have an idea-if I can
have some guards.”

   “How many? I don’t
have that many of the original marines left.”

   “New ones will be fine, with
maybe one experienced one.”

   “Can you tell me what you have
in mind?”

   “It’s an idea. Call
it a booby trap. One way or another, it will work.” He
sighed. “It will work. Everything I build works.”

   “All right, but stop feeling
sorry for yourself about it. It takes strength to survive here, and
there’s nothing either one of us can do about
that.” The marshal paused, her eyes straying to the window
again, before she continued. “There’s another
thing. From what Relyn learned from the two survivors, before we sent
them off, Gerlich was stupid, and this Lord Sillek
isn’t.”

   “Stupid in what way?”
asked Nylan.

   “Gerlich got caught up in the
fighting and forgot his original plan. The wizard was supposed to throw
firebolts at the guards and incinerate them one by one. Instead,
Gerlich charged, and when everyone got mixed together, the wizard
couldn’t.”

   “That was probably because you
parried that wizard’s fire,” Nylan said.

   “Parried? I didn’t do
that.”

   “I saw it. You threw up the
blade, and the firebolt turned.”

   “It must be your blades,
then,” Ryba laughed. “The great smith Nylan whose
blades turned back the wizards’ fire.”

   Nylan not only doubted her analysis, but
failed to see the humor. “That’s probably why
Gerlich ordered the charge. He thought the wizard’s fire
wouldn’t work, and that the guards would pick off his men one
by one.”

   “Our arrows can’t
pick off a thousand invaders.”

   “That many?”

   “That few, if we’re
lucky.”

   Nylan stood. “I think
I’d better figure out more than a few tricks.”

   “Nylan… we still
need arrows and the laser.”

   “I know-and magic blades, and a
complete set of armaments from the Winterlance.” He tempered
his words with a forced grin. “And a lot of luck.”

   “We can’t count on
luck.”

   “Of course not. We’re
angels.” He inclined his head. “Maybe Relyn can
pray to his new religion.”

   For the first time in seasons, Ryba
looked surprised. “His what?”

   “Once we destroy Lornth,
he’s going out to preach the faith of the angels, the way of
black order-something like that. He’s convinced you and I and
Ayrlyn will change the world.”

   “I can’t say I like
that. Not at all.” Ryba’s fingers seemed to inch
toward the blade at her hip.

   “Let him go,” Nylan
said wearily. “If we win, we can use all the propaganda we
can get, and religion’s good propaganda. If not…
it doesn’t matter.”

   “It won’t be the
same. It won’t be Westwind-what we believe. The last thing
this forsaken planet needs is a new messianic religion.”

   “No, Ryba, he won’t
follow your vision. You’re the only one with your vision, but
I’d trust his version more than any alternatives that might
crop up.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s
worry about this later.”

   Ryba shook her head.

   “Relyn’s one man. We
have to fight a frigging army first. A lot of your guards respect
Relyn. It wouldn’t exactly help morale…”

   “All right… but
after this is over… we’ll have to settle
that.”

   Nylan nodded and rose.
“I’ll see you later.” He knew how she
would settle the issue, and that bothered him, too. Would she always be
like that?

   “Nylan… just do what
you can. You work hard, and it will be enough. Trust me.”

   “I have, and I am.”
As he stepped back, before turning toward the door and the steps, he
gave another not quite false smile, thinking, And look where
it’s gotten me!

 

 

CXIX

 

SILLEK PAUSES BEFORE the open tower window, letting the faint
breeze, warm as it is, lift the sweat off his face.

   Despite the late-summer heat, the lady
Ellindyja sits in the alcove, away from the breeze, wearing a
long-sleeved shirt and an overtunic. The embroidery hoop in her lap
shows the figure of a lord, wearing a gold circlet, with an enormous
glittering blade ready to fall upon a woman warrior in black. The face
of the lord is blank, unfinished.

   “How nice to see you, my
lord,” she says politely.

   “You are looking well, Lady
Mother.” He offers a slight bow as he turns from the window
and steps toward the straight chair.

   “Well enough for an old woman
who has outlived her usefulness.” She threads the needle with
crimson thread, her fingers steady and sure.

   “Old? Scarcely.”
Sillek laughs as he seats himself opposite her.

   “Like any grandmother, I
suppose, I see more of my grandson than his father. He looks much like
you. And your lady is most solicitous of my health and
opinions.”

   “You imply that I am
not.” Sillek shrugs. “I am here.”

   Ellindyja knots the crimson thread and
takes the first stitch, beginning a drop of blood that falls from the
left arm of the lord in the embroidery hoop.

   “You know of
Ildyrom’s envoy, and his proposal…”
Sillek lets the words trail off.

   “I was under the impression
that it was somewhat more than a proposal. He sent a sealed agreement,
a chest of golds, and removed all his troops back to
Berlitos.” Ellindyja completes another loop in the first
droplet of blood. “That should free you to reclaim your
patrimony.”

   “With what?” Sillek
laughs. “I have nearly a thousand armsmen still in Rulyarth,
and that doesn’t count those supplied by Gethen.”

   “I understand-or was I
mistaken?-that Lord Karthanos offered to place score forty troops under
your command for the purpose of taking the Roof of the World.”

   “You understand
correctly.” Sillek leans back in the chair. “It is
truly amazing that my former foes have suddenly become so solicitous of
my need to reclaim my patrimony. Truly amazing.”

   “Those who do not use resources
while they can often wish they had.” The needle flashes, as
though it contained a silver flame.

   “A good thought, provided one
knows the price of such resources.” Sillek leans forward
slightly.

   “You lost a wizard-a foolish
one, but a strong one-because you attempted to regain your heritage
indirectly. Indirection does not become your father’s
son.” The first droplet of blood is complete, and
Ellindyja’s needle begins the second, darting through the
pale linen like a rapier.

   “I suppose you’re
right, especially since I have no choice.”

   Ellindyja sets the embroidery hoop down,
and her eyes fix on her son’s. “Lord, you never had
a choice. A lord whose holders believe he cannot hold his own lands
will not trust him to guard theirs. A lord who allows their women to
flee will find his holders demanding his women, and his head. A lord
who will not protect his holders against attacks on what they hold dear
cannot long count on holding even his own tower, let alone his
lands.” She lifts the embroidery, and the needle flashes.

   Sillek nods ever so slightly, but says
nothing.

   “It has been so nice that you
came to visit me, dear,” Ellindyja says sweetly.
“And do tell your lady that I appreciate her kindness. I
would not keep you now, for there must be much you must do.”
The needle knots at the back of the second droplet of blood.

   Sillek rises. “I do appreciate
your wisdom, Mother, and your indirectly forthright expressions, as
well as all those conversations with your old friends, which have
helped to leave me little choice. Still, I trust you will recall that I
sought your counsel before I began my preparations to reclaim my
patrimony. And I will certainly convey your thanks to Zeldyan. She is
most respectful of you.”

   “And I of her, dear.”
Ellindyja smiles as Sillek bows before departing. “And I of
her.”

 

 

CXX

 

“EASY, EASY…”THE three new
guards, led by Ydrall, eased the heavy section of log into the hole.

   Nylan nodded. “Wedge it in
place with the heavy stones.”

   Two of the guards began to roll a round
stone toward the hole while the other two braced the log in place.

   Nylan surveyed the two lines of holes.
Each hole was about eight cubits from the next, and the first line lay
just short of the top of the ridge on the tower side, below the
narrowest point between the rock outcroppings that constricted the open
space on each end. Still, the distance was over two hundred cubits, and
that was a lot of engineering in what might be a very short time.

   If he couldn’t complete the
pike line he had in mind, perhaps a cable that could be raised at the
last moment would provide some carnage. Nylan massaged his temples.
Ryba’s thoughts about power notwithstanding, designing
destructive systems still gave him headaches.

   A single horse broke away from the
mounted drills and started up toward Nylan and his crew. After leaving
the paved lower section of the road by the tower, Saryn turned her
mount from the packed clay trail and rode up across the grassy slope
toward Nylan.

   “The marshal said you were
going to try something else,” Saryn said as she reined up.
“Are you putting up a fence? Those posts are more than a half
cubit across, and you’ve sunk them nearly two cubits deep.
Isn’t that a lot of work? A fence isn’t going to
stop a horde of armsmen, not for long, anyway.”

   “It’s not a
fence.” Nylan offered a wry smile. “And it is a lot
of work. If I get time, there will be two lines of these posts, and
what goes with them.” Nylan wiped his damp forehead.

   “Do you want to
explain?” Saryn surveyed the lines of holes, turning in the
saddle.

   “Not really, except that
I’m trying to put something together to cause trouble for any
attackers. If I can get it in place and it works, then I’ll
let you know. If I don’t, then I won’t feel so
stupid for promising something.”

   Saryn shook her head as she rode back
toward the road.

   Ydrall watched the exchange with a
puzzled look.

   Nylan hoped everyone stayed puzzled.

   The idea was simple enough-semiautomatic
pikes-a whole line of pikes attached to stringers or crossbeams,
weighted to slip up at the right angle and set to ground if a horse and
rider impacted them.

   Nylan had set them on the flat just over
the crest of the hill. All an attacker would see would be a line of
squat pillars, with nothing between them until the last moment-he hoped.

   As the crew finished wedging the second
post in place, he nodded to the third hole. “Let’s
try for another.” He picked up one section of the harness,
and they began to drag the log toward the next hole, while behind them,
two of the guards tamped soil in between the wedging rocks.

   Below them, another crew supervised by
Weindre was building a fortified platform for the weapons laser-to the
east of the road leading down from the ridge. The platform would allow
the laser a sweep of the entire downslope.

   Lasers and semiautomatic pikes-what a
strange combination of weaponry. Would it be enough against thousands
of attackers?

   Nylan doubted it, but what choices did
they have? The locals seemed enraged enough to tear apart anyone from
Westwind if they tried to flee, and most of those on the Roof of the
World, for one reason or another, could not survive elsewhere.

   “All right,” Nylan
said. “Let’s get this one in place.” The
sound of stonework drifted up from below, along with those of practice
wands, and horse drills, carried by the wind that bore the faintest
hint of fall.

 

 

CXXI

 

SILLEK WEARS A purple tunic over a lighter shirt, and maroon
leather trousers. The scabbard holding the sabre at his side and his
riding boots are both scarred and workmanlike. He carries a heavy
leather jacket in his left arm as he stands by the door. “I
need to go.”

   “I know.” Zeldyan
offers a gentle smile. “Be careful.”

   “I always am.”

   “Don’t be a
hero,” says Zeldyan quietly, holding a squirming Nesslek,
whose fingers grasp for the blond strands held back from his hands by
her green and silver hairband.

   “I have no intentions that
way-as you know. My idea is to win, not to follow some outdated idea of
honor.”

   “Please remember
that.”

   “I will. If…
though… If it comes to that, you have what you
need… Summon your father…” His voice
turns husky for a moment.

   “I know. It won’t be
necessary.” Her tone is bright, despite the darkness in her
eyes.

   Sillek enfolds them both in his arms, and
his lips and Zeldyan’s touch, gently, desperately gently.

   Nesslek’s fingers seize his
father’s tunic and twist.

   Sillek reaches up and disengages the
chubby fingers. “You, young imp. Always grabbing.”

   “Like his father,”
Zeldyan says gently.

   Sillek holds his son’s fingers,
and his and Zeldyan’s lips brush again, more delicately, more
longingly than the last time.

 

 

CXXII

 

“… WHAT NEWS DO you have,
Ayrlyn?” asked Ryba.

   Five people and an infant had gathered
around the head table in the great room-Ryba, Saryn, Fierral, Ayrlyn,
Nylan, and Dyliess. Dyliess dozed in the carrypack on Nylan’s
chest although, he reflected, she was already growing too big for it,
and her upper body half sprawled out of the pouch and across
Nylan’s chest. He patted his daughter’s back gently.

   The two fat candles on the table created
a circle of dim light that barely included the table and those around
it.

   In the gloom, Nylan glanced across the
table at Ayrlyn, her hair still damp from the shower she had taken
immediately upon her return from her latest trading/scouting venture.
She returned his glance with a faint smile, then turned toward Ryba,
and began to speak.

   With his free left hand, Nylan idly
brushed the bread crumbs off the table as he listened, ignoring the
creaks of the crickets that had begun to invade the tower.

   “There’s nothing
absolute yet, except that Lord Sillek has either just begun to move his
army, or that he will shortly. Everyone seems certain that he is
getting reinforcements from the Lord of Gallos, and that the Lord of
Jerans has sent gold and a pledge of peace.” Ayrlyn took a
sip of cold tea from her mug, then set it back on the table.

   “In effect, we have three local
kingdoms determined to wipe us out, just because we’ve armed
some women and given others a place to flee to.” Ryba laughed
harshly. “It’s wonderful to be so well
liked.”

   “Giving women an option is
radical, even revolutionary, in this culture. It has been in most
noncold-climate cultures,” pointed out Ayrlyn.
“People with power don’t like change. Just by
existing, we’re creating change.”

   “We’ll keep doing
it,” said Ryba, asking, after a moment, “How did
you do with your trading?”

   “Trading-not that well. The
word is out everywhere. We couldn’t trade for much. All the
traders felt we should be paying double or triple.” Ayrlyn
gave a half smile as if she were anticipating the next question.

   “But the carts were
full,” said Fierral, as if on cue.

   “Peasant women,
herders’ women, even a trader’s consort-they gave
me things. There are linens, bandages, salves, and food-all in small
packages. There are even coppers and silvers.”

   “You can’t tell me
that every woman in Candar is praying for us,” said Saryn.

   “Hardly,” answered
Ayrlyn. “Some in the small towns, places without names, spat
at us. Some towns closed their shutters. But we must have traveled
through ten towns.” She shrugged. “Figure two women
a town and every tenth herder’s woman, and those who gave
were generous. We had to keep ahead of reports that would have sent a
large force of armsmen after us. The locals wouldn’t
dare.”

   “Any other word on Lord
Sillek?” asked Ryba.

   Dyliess murmured, and Nylan patted her
back.

   “There are plenty of rumors.
He’s hired score ten mercenaries from someplace called
Lydiar. He’s raised score fifty armsmen in levies. Lord
Karthanos is sending score forty armsmen and siege engines. The Jeranyi
women will ride against the evil angels-”

   “Forget that one,”
Ryba suggested. “There won’t be a woman in those
forces. Not a one.”

   “-a dozen wizards will join
Lord Sillek. Not a single wizard will oppose the angels. For almost
every rumor, there’s one on the other side.”

   “Wizards? They can be
nasty,” pointed out Saryn, “especially if there are
a lot with this Lord Sillek.”

   “According to Relyn,”
Nylan pointed out, “good wizards are rare. One thing
that’s kept all of Sillek’s enemies from
overwhelming him has been the fact that he had three. One we killed.
That leaves two. I’d guess we’ll face both, and I
doubt anyone else will risk lending their wizards.”

   “Two wizards, and up to two
thousand troops. We’ve got sixty bodies-not guards, just warm
bodies, one sort of wizard”-Fierral nods toward
Nylan-“a few gadgets, and one laser good for a very short
time. I can’t say any objective assessment of our situation
would give us much of a chance.”

   Ryba’s glance turned to Nylan.
“How is your work coming?”

   “The pikes have been the hard
part, even without iron tips. Tomorrow we should finish the first line
up on the ridge. Two more days should see the second line done. The
laser emplacement walls are complete, and we can have the laser in
place almost in moments.”

   “What exactly are your
defensive surprises?” asked Fierral. “You only test
them when it’s raining or in the darkness.”

   “That’s because of
something Relyn said. Narliat mentioned it earlier. I’d
forgotten, though. Ryba knows.” Nylan looked at the marshal.

   She shrugged.

   “These wizards seem to know a
lot. Relyn says that some have a special mirrorlike glass and that they
can see events through it. They can’t do it well in the dark
or through running water. Rain is running water.” He cleared
his throat and patted Dyliess again. “What’s up
there are what I’d call automatic pikes. When I pull a cord,
they’ll snap up into place.”

   “That means someone will have
to be up there,” pointed out Fierral.

   “That’s one reason
why there are two lines,” answered Nylan.
“There’s about thirty cubits from the rise to the
first row. I checked the line of sight, and you can’t see the
posts until you pass the crest. Now, if they charge quickly, then a
bunch of them are going to get spitted. If they go slowly,
they’ll have to stop, and that should make them good targets
for arrows.” He shrugged. “I know it means four to
eight guards will be exposed, but they can lie flat behind the posts
until they trigger them. After that, I really don’t think, if
they hurry back to the second line and trigger those, that anyone will
be paying attention to them.”

   “How well do these
work?”

   “So far, every time.”
Nylan gave a sardonic smile. “That means something will go
wrong when it counts. Even if one or two don’t work,
it’s going to slow them down a lot and allow you to pump a
lot more shafts into them.”

   Fierral nodded. “I can see
that. I hope that we can get maximum impact from everything.”

   “When will they get
here?” asked Saryn.

   “Sometime in the next three to
five days, I’d guess,” answered Ryba.
“Unlike the bandits, or Gerlich, this won’t be a
sneak attack. They’ll attempt to move in mass and not get
picked off piece by piece.”

   “Why?” questioned
Saryn.

   “Because they don’t
have high-tech communications. Everything’s line of sight or
sound.”

   “What are we going to
do?” asked Nylan.

   “That’s
simple,” snapped Fierral. “Shoot a lot of arrows
from cover as they advance. That’s so they stay bunched up
and use those little shields. Then we’ll form up out of their
bow range and try to delay them so the entire attacking force is
concentrated on the tower side of the ridge. After that, we hope you
and the laser, and anything else you can come up with, can incinerate
most of them. Otherwise, we’re dead, and so is
Westwind.”

   “I think Fierral has stated our
basic strategy clearly,” said Ryba. “Is there
anything else?”

   After a long silence, she stood.

   Ayrlyn looked at Nylan, giving him the
faintest of headshakes. He offered a small nod in return.

   As the silence continued, punctuated by
the crickets, the others rose, Nylan the last of all as he eased off
the bench slowly, trying not to wake Dyliess.

   Nylan and Ryba walked up to the top level
of the tower without speaking. Ryba closed the door, and Nylan eased
Dyliess out of the carrypack and into the cradle.

   Later, in the darkness, as he rocked the
cradle gently, Nylan asked, “Even if we win-”

   “We will win,” Ryba
snapped, “if we just do what we can.”

   “Fine. Then what? The
laser’s gone. Probably half the guards or more will be gone.
What happens with the next attack?”

   “There won’t be
one.”

   “Why do you say that?
We’ve been attacked for almost two solid years. What would
change that?” He tried to keep the cradle rocking evenly.
“You’re the one who tells me that force wins, and
that people keep trying.”

   Ryba shrugged. “After the
destruction of the combined army of three local nations, who could
afford to even suggest another attack immediately? And if he did, how
could he be sure that his enemies wouldn’t find his
undefended lands easier pickings?”

   “Sooner or later, someone will
try.”

   “Three years from now, Westwind
will have a considerable army of its own, with alliances and a
treasury.”

   Nylan shook his head, glad Ryba did not
have his night vision.

   “Don’t doubt me on
this, Nylan. I’m not saying it won’t be costly, or
that it will be easy. I am saying that we can win. And that it will be
worth it, because no one in our lifetime will try again-if we do it
right.”

   Dyliess snuffled, then settled into a
deeper sleep, and Nylan slowly eased the cradle to a stop. Before long,
it seemed, she’d be too big for the cradle. He wondered if
he’d see that day. Ryba had said Westwind would prevail. That
didn’t mean he would, and he wasn’t about to
ask-not now. He wondered if he really wanted to know-or feared the
answer.

   He eased into his separate couch, looking
past Ryba’s open eyes to the cold stars above the western
peaks.

 

 

CXXIII

 

NYLAN RAISED THE hammer and let it fall, cutting yet another
arrowhead, knowing that it might not matter, but not knowing what else
he could do while they waited for the ponderous advance of the Lornian
forces. Not that one more arrowhead probably ever made a difference in
a big battle, except to the man it killed.

   He lifted the hammer, and let it fall,
lifted, and let fall, and as he did, from the smithy, he could see the
constant flow of messengers and scouts, tracking the oncoming force and
reporting to Ryba and Fierral or Saryn.

   As he set the iron into the forge to
reheat, the triangle rang, twice, then twice again.

   “That’s it,
ser,” announced Huldran. “Time to make
ready.”

   “Ready for what?”
Nylan hadn’t paid that much attention to the signal codes.
Two and two, he thought, meant the arrival of Sillek’s force
in the general area.

   “The scouts and the pick-off
efforts.” Huldran set down the hammer and the hot set she had
been working with and racked both. Nylan followed her example with his
tools. It wouldn’t hurt to check on his pike arrays and make
sure all the laser components were ready to set up.

   After banking the fire, as he left the
smithy, he glanced at the afternoon sky, with the scattered
thunderclouds of late summer rising over the peaks. Surely, the
Lornians wouldn’t attack late in the afternoon?

   He headed down to the tower. When he
started across the causeway, he looked up to see Ayrlyn waiting by the
door.

   “The end of the golden
age,” she said ironically.

   “What?” Her words
halted him in his steps. “What do you mean by that?”

   Her brown eyes seemed to flash that dark
blue shade, and then her lips quirked. “If the angels win,
then women will throw off their shackles, and men will see the past as
the golden age. If we lose, why then, we will have been that bright
shining age forever aborted by the cruelty and stupidity of
men.” Her tone turned from faintly ironic to bitterly
sardonic. “I think that’s the party line.”

   Nylan thought for a moment. “I
suppose that is the official line. The problem is that it’s
got a lot of truth within it, especially on this planet.”

   Ayrlyn gestured to the causeway wall.
“Why don’t you sit down? They really
don’t have any use for a healer who loses her guts when they
kill someone, or for an engineer who’d rather build than
kill. Not today. Tomorrow they’ll need us both.”

   Nylan hoisted himself up on the low wall.
“I haven’t seen you this bitter, I don’t
think ever.”

   “I haven’t
been.” She paused while she climbed onto the wall.
“I’m tired, Nylan. I’m tired of having to
heal people because no one can ever solve anything except with force.
I’m tired of being thought of as some sort of weakling
because killing men upsets me. Frig it! Killing anything upsets me.
It’s just that a lot more men have been killed around here
lately.”

   “That’s
true.”

   “I’m tired of
traveling and trading, and seeing women with terror in their eyes,
seeing women barely more than girls pregnant and not much more than
brood mares. Ryba may be right, that force applied in large enough
quantities is the only solution, but I’m tired of
it.”

   “So am I,” Nylan
said, almost without thinking. “And I’m tired
because nothing is enough. More arrowheads, more blades, more violence.
And what happens? We’ve got one of the biggest armies in this
culture’s history marching after us. And if we do manage to
destroy it? What then?”

   “Why… everything
will be roses and good crops and strong healthy baby girls,
won’t it?” Ayrlyn sighed. “And warm
fires, and good meals, and smithies and sawmills and…
and… and…”

   “Of course. Isn’t
that the way the story’s supposed to end?”

   Ayrlyn laughed, harshly.
“Frig… frig, frig… the story never
ends. People fight, and fight, and fight. If you win, you have to keep
fighting so others won’t take it away. If you lose and
survive, you have to fight to live and to regain what you lost.
Why?”

   “Because nothing is ever
enough,” Nylan said harshly. “We talked about this
before.”

   “And nothing ever
changes?”

   “Not yet. Not that
I’ve been able to figure out.”

   “Nylan… ?”

   “Yes.”

   “If we get through this, can we
try to change things… so it’s not just fight,
fight, fight?”

   He nodded.

   “You promise?”

   “Promise.”

   For a time, they sat there silently,
hands clasped, watching the departures and the hurrying guards, until
Kadran came out and rang the triangle to announce supper for those few
left in Tower Black.

 

 

CXXIV

 

NYLAN LAY AWAKE on his couch, his ears and senses listening to
the gentle sound of Dyliess’s breathing, his thoughts on
scattered feelings and images-including an evening meal with only a
handful of guards even there, most gone out into the twilight with full
quivers; including the idea that the whole world was decided by
violence and where no achievement or possession was ever enough.

   His breath hissed out between clenched
teeth.

   “Are you awake?” Ryba
asked quietly from across the gap between them.

   “Yes. It’s a little
hard to get to sleep, no matter how much you need the rest, thinking of
two thousand men who want to kill you and destroy all you’ve
built.” Nylan really didn’t want to discuss the
problems of violence and greed with Ryba.

   “They won’t do it.
Not if we all do our parts.”

   “You’ve said that
before. I know in my head that you’re probably right, but my
emotions don’t always follow reason. You seem to have more
faith than I do that we can destroy a force close to fifty times our
size.”

   “Fierral thinks our archers
have already taken out between a hundred and two hundred of their
armsmen. She still has a few out there, the ones with night
vision,” Ryba said. “Tomorrow, if we can take out
another two hundred and get them in a murderous mood coming up the
ridge, your little traps could add a hundred or two more. We might get
them down to an even thousand before you have to use the
laser.”

   “And…
poof… just like that, our troubles are over?”

   “What’s gotten into
you, Nylan? I know you don’t like all the killing, but,
outside of dying or running like outlaws until we’re hunted
down, what choices do we have?” She paused. “Oh, I
forgot. We could spend the rest of our very short lives barefoot and
pregnant and beaten, unless we were fortunate enough to subject
ourselves to someone who’s as kind as you are, and
I’ve met exactly one of you in a life a decade longer than
yours.”

   Nylan had no answer, not one that made
sense. Logically, what Ryba said made sense, but he wanted to scream,
to ask why logic dictated violence and killing, when the only answer
was that only violence answered violence, and that some people refused
to give up violence.

   “Your problem is that
you’re basically good and kind, and you really have trouble
accepting that most people aren’t, that most people require
force or discipline to live in any sort of order.”

   “I see that part,”
Nylan conceded. “What I don’t see is why people are
like that. War leaves a few people better off, but most worse off.
Sometimes, it’s even necessary to survive, but that means
that the other side doesn’t.”

   “Look at those Gallosian men
who attacked earlier this summer.” Ryba’s voice was
low and cool. “They couldn’t conceive of women like
us. They wouldn’t face it. They would rather have died than
faced the idea that women could be as tough and as smart-and they did.
You have to face the facts, Nylan. Most people’s beliefs
aren’t rational. They wouldn’t do what they do if
they were. But they do, and that’s the proof.”

   “I suppose so.” Nylan
took another deep breath, trying to keep it low and quiet. He
didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He just wanted to know
why people were so blind. Sure-violence was always successful for the
strongest, but only one person could ever be the strongest. So why did
so many people delude themselves into thinking they were that person?
“I suppose so… and I can see what you say. I
don’t have to like it.”

   “Neither do I.” Ryba
yawned. “But I can’t change peo-ple.”

   Nylan wondered if she really wanted to,
but said nothing in the darkness. He turned to watch the cradle, hoping
that Dyliess might understand, yet fearing that, if she did, she would
not survive. He studied her profile in the silence until his eyes got
heavy, until he dropped into an uneasy sleep, far too late, and far too
close to an early dawn.

 

 

CXXV

 

THE TRIANGLE RANG in the darkness, and Nylan bolted upright.

   Ryba moaned in her sleep, and Dyliess
snuffled and shifted on the lumpy cradle mattress. Slowly, the
smith-engineer swung his feet onto the floor. He sat on the edge of the
bed for a time, until Dyliess began to whimper. Then he eased his
daughter from the cradle, and half sat, half fell into the rocking
chair, with her on his chest, where he began to rock and pat her back.

   The triangle sounded again, once, and
Ryba mumbled, “Not yet.”

   Nylan agreed with the sentiment, but
waited until Ryba shifted her weight again with another groan.

   “The great day has
arrived,” said Nylan. “I hope it’s great.
Better yet, I hope they just take their army and turn around.”

   “That won’t
happen,” mumbled Ryba groggily as she turned in his
direction. In the dark, she fumbled with the striker for a time before
she could get the candle lit. “I still don’t
understand how you can see in pitch-darkness. Demons, it’s
early.”

   Nylan patted Dyliess, but her whimpers
rapidly progressed toward wails.

   “She’s
hungry,” he pointed out.

   “I can hear that. Just let me
get half-dressed.” Ryba pulled leather trousers off the pegs
and stuffed her legs into them, then pulled on her boots, leaving the
thin sleeping gown in place over trousers and boots as she walked
toward Nylan and their daughter. “Would you take
Dyliess’s cradle down to the main level while I feed
her?” asked Ryba. “After you get dressed, I
mean.”

   “You can feed her
now?”

   “Who else?”

   Nylan stood, then handed Dyliess to her
mother. Even before Dyliess started to nurse, the wails stopped.

   “Greedy little
piglet.”

   “She’s not so little
anymore,” Nylan observed as he began to don his leathers.

   “She’s still
greedy.”

   Like the whole world, thought Nylan, but
maybe I can change her a little. After he dressed and strapped the pair
of blades in place, he lifted the cradle, stepping carefully so that he
didn’t trip on either cradle or blades. He snorted, thinking
how pointless it would all be if he tumbled down four flights of stone
steps before the battle.

   “I’ll bring her down
in a moment,” Ryba said. “Go ahead and
eat.”

   “Fine,” he grunted,
struggling through the door with his burden.

   After he slowly trudged down the steps
and set the cradle next to the others carried down by either Siret or
Istril or those who had helped them, Nylan paused. He saw a hand
wiggling and walked over to look down at Weryl. Flat on his back, his
son studied his own chubby hands, his short fingers intertwining, then
separating, as if they were not really connected to his own body.
Antyl-the new and very pregnant guard-stood watching.

   Nylan bent down and touched
Weryl’s arm lightly, trying to offer some cheer. After a bit,
he straightened. In the next cradle lay Kyalynn, being rocked by Niera.
His other daughter’s eyes were wide in the dimness, but she
only looked, first at Niera, and then at Nylan.

   Nylan walked around the cradle so that he
could bend down without getting in Niera’s way, and he
touched Kyalynn’s wrist. Her eyes turned to him, deep green
and serious as he looked at her.

   Finally, his eyes burning, he stood. He
swallowed, took a deep breath, and started toward the great room.
Though his guts were tight, he knew he had to eat, as much as he could
stomach.

   “I saw that, Nylan.”

   He looked up as Istril stood there: Then
he shrugged. “What can I say? I didn’t have a lot
to do with their birth, but nothing can change that they’re
my children.”

   “You had a lot to do with their
birth, just not their conception.” Istril swallowed.
“I hope Weryl grows up like you.”

   “I hope he grows up,”
Nylan said bleakly.

   “He will. I can see
that.”

   “You, too?” Nylan
forced a chuckle.

   “Me, too.” Istril
paused. “You’re not riding with the
guard?”

   “No. I’m supposed to
stay with the laser, and try to hold off their wizards in some way that
I haven’t really figured out. So I don’t have to
worry, in the beginning, anyway, about arrows and blades.”

   “That doesn’t
reassure me, Nylan.”

   “What you’re wearing
doesn’t reassure me much, either.” Nylan looked at
the silver-haired guard, in full battle dress with twin blades, and the
bow and quiver in her hands. “What about…
?”

   “Weryl? There are more than
score eighty armsmen out there, and two of those small siege engines.
Every person counts. Siret and I drew straws. I won, or lost, depending
on how it goes. Yesterday, she went out with the sniping detail. You
know they got almost two hundred of the Lornians, especially in the
darkness?”

   “What about their
wizards?”

   “They can’t see that
well in the dark, and Saryn had the tactics laid out well. Only one
shot from each position, then move. When you’ve got twenty
kays of trail to leapfrog along and they don’t dare leave
formation, it’s not that hard.”

   “Of course,” Nylan
said, “by this morning those fifteen hundred or so who are
left are ready to kill us all, preferably by attaching sections of our
anatomy to horses traveling at high rates of speed in different
directions.”

   “Probably. We just have to kill
all of them. Then they won’t be a problem.”

   Nylan looked at her. He thought he saw a
faint hint of a smile. Then again, maybe he hadn’t.
“That’s not a solution that works well over
time.”

   “No. It’d be a lot
easier if most men were more like you, but they seem to be more like
Gerlich.”

   Nylan’s stomach growled, and
his head felt faint.

   “You need to eat, and so do
I.”

   Nylan nodded, and they walked toward the
great room, where the tables were mostly filled. The candles helped
dispel some of the predawn gloom, but not much, and they flickered with
the breeze through the open windows.

   Istril sat down at the second table.

   Ayrlyn-dark circles under her eyes-nodded
as Nylan sat down at the head table.

   “You’re
tired,” Nylan said, reaching for the pot that held the bitter
tea he needed-badly.

   “It was a late night.”

    “You went with the
archers?”

   Ayrlyn finished the mug of tea.
“I can see in the dark. It helps.”

   Sensing her exhaustion, Nylan stretched
across the table and refilled her mug.

   “Thank you.” The
healer put a chunk of bread in her mouth almost mechanically, as if
each bite were an effort.

   “Do you want some
meat?”

   “No… thank
you,” the redhead added. “It’s not your
fault, Nylan, but it was a long and hard night.” She slowly
chewed another piece of bread.

   “It’s too
early,” grumbled Huldran. “Bad business to fight
before dawn.”

   “We’re not fighting
before dawn,” said Fierral. “We’re
eating.”

   “How did it go last
night?” asked Nylan.

   “Well enough that any other
idiot would have turned around. There are bodies everywhere along the
road. Their commander was smart enough to keep them moving, and not try
burial. They’ve got a half-fortified encampment a valley or
so down out on a rise that’s surrounded by grass.”
Fierral chewed through a thick chunk of bread, and then a lukewarm
strip of unidentified meat that Nylan had tried and choked down despite
a taste like gamy venison. “We didn’t get many
after they camped. Too open.”

   “We got a lot, and lost a few
ourselves,” Ayrlyn said tiredly.

   Nylan understood her exhaustion went
beyond mere tiredness, and he wondered how many she had healed, or had
been unable to heal.

   Ryba, fully dressed, had carried Dyliess
into the great room, although she had left her bow and blades on the
shelves by the stairs. As she seated herself, and Dyliess, she answered
Ayrlyn’s comment. “That leaves a lot, and us with
fewer guards.”

   Nylan repressed a wince, wondering how
Ryba could sometimes be so insensitive-or so strong-as to ignore such
pain. Which was it? he wondered. Then his eyes crossed
Ayrlyn’s, and he offered a quick and apologetic smile.

   He got a brief one in return.

   “We’ll have the first
of the picket posts set in a bit, ser,” said Fierral.
“I had some of the newer guards out real early, scrounging
shafts and weapons from the ones that fell last night. They should be
back not too long after dawn, well before the army starts
moving.”

   “Men are slow in the
morning,” mumbled Huldran. “Excepting you,
ser,” she added to Nylan.

   The smith-engineer wondered why he was
the exception to everything-or was that just because Ryba needed him?
Or because he disliked the use offeree to solve everything, even when
he was guilty, or more guilty than just about anyone, of employing it?
He took a sip of tea, then lowered the mug to his chin, letting the
steam seep around his face.

   After a few more sips, he slowly chewed a
strip of hot-sauced venison, and then another, and then some more
bread. All of it tasted flat, but he kept eating.

   “…
engineer’s off somewhere… got that
look…”

   “…
wouldn’t want to be in his boots…”

   “I would.”

   “That’s not what I
meant…”

   In time, he looked up. Ayrlyn and Fierral
were gone. The tables were half-empty, and Ryba was wiping her face
one-handed, juggling Dyliess on her leg.

   “Can you take her?”
asked the marshal. “Antyl and Blynnal are keeping the
children, while Siret holds the tower…”

   “I know. Istril told
me.” He stood, then took his daughter, still looking at her
mother.

   “You know what you’re
going to do?” Ryba asked.

   “It’s pretty simple,
in theory anyway. You and the guards get them bunched on the hillside,
and I fry them. That doesn’t take into account that they may
not want to bunch or that their wizards may have other ideas, or that
the wizards may be able to block the effect of the laser. Or that the
wizards may be able to fry me. But,” he concluded,
“I understand the plan.” He paused. “Was
there any problem getting some of the newer guards to trip the
pikes?”

   “No. There were a handful
who’d have done it on a suicide basis.”

   Nylan winced.
“There’s a lot of hatred here.”

   “There’s been a lot
of hidden hatred between men and women in a lot of cultures, Nylan.
It’s just more obvious here.” Ryba half turned.
“I’ve got to go. Ill either check with you or send
a messenger once we’re set.”

   Nylan shifted Dyliess to his shoulder and
patted her back as he walked slowly to the other side of the tower,
trying and succeeding in not tripping over the pair of blades he wore.

   He eased Dyliess into the cradle, then
patted her arm and touched her smooth cheek. She smiled, then
threatened to cry as he stood.

   “Istril told me you were here
earlier.” Siret had just handed Kyalynn to Antyl, and she
stepped toward Nylan. The silver-haired guard had deep circles under
her green eyes, and a narrow slash across her cheek.

   Nylan reached out and touched the skin
beside the wound, letting a little order seep into it.

   “You didn’t have to
do that.”

   “You didn’t have to
go out last night and try to reduce the odds against us.”

   They just looked at each other for a long
moment.

   Then Nylan cleared his throat.
“Take care of them. Just… take care of
them.”

   He turned and headed up the steps to the
fifth level and the components of the weapons laser. Huldran joined him
on the way up.

   The sun had just begun to ease above the
great forest to the east of the cliffs when Nylan carried the weapons
laser head and cables across the lower meadow to the crude brick
revetment. From the raised position on its platform on the highest
point of ground east of the tower, amid the fields, the weapons laser
had a clean field of fire in nearly any direction.

   Behind him followed Huldran and three of
the newer recruits, none of whose names Nylan knew, carrying the heavy
firin cell block and the rest of the equipment.

   Nylan positioned the tripod, then clicked
the firing head onto the swivel. After that came the power cable.

   “Let’s move the cells
to the center here,” he suggested, and one of the new guards,
a mahogany redhead, helped.

   After that he straightened and looked at
the three new guards. “That’s all we need for now.
Go do whatever you’re supposed to do.”

   “We’re supposed to
guard you,” the redhead said. “Oh… all
right. Then get as many shafts as you can and whatever else you need
and report back here. When the time comes, try to use arrows and keep
them at a distance. The farther away the better.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   The three guards started walking toward
the tower. Nylan shook his head and turned to Huldran.
“I’ll check this out while you get our mounts. When
you get back, I want to inspect the pike lines. Is that all
right?”

   “I get to walk up to get the
horses and bring them back, and you get to ride?” asked
Huldran, raising her eyebrows. “I thought it was a good
idea,” said Nylan. “Sometimes, ser, you still have
certain male characteristics.”

   They both laughed. Then Huldran trotted
uphill along the paved road to the stables and the corrals where not
only the horses were, but where the sheep had been gathered.

   As the early golden light fell across the
meadows, and the fields, Nylan slowly went through each and every
connection, letting his senses check the lines where the flows would
follow. He did not power up the system. He could sense that it would
work, and he knew that he would need every erg of power, and probably a
lot more.

   When he had finished, Huldran had not
returned, and he looked out to the west, to Tower Black standing in the
light against the shadowed rocky hills that rose eventually into the
higher peaks of the Westhorns. In the flat morning light, the Roof of
the World was quiet except for the steps of the last guards heading up
to the stables. The grass hung limp in the stillness, dew glittering
like tiny diamonds in the light. The scene appeared almost pastoral.

   As Huldran rode across the grass, leading
the brown mare, Nylan took another deep breath, conscious that he had
recently been taking a lot of deep breaths, a whole lot-and that
nothing had changed. He still had to destroy hundreds of men, just so
Westwind would be left alone. He walked behind the emplacement and
started to check the mare’s saddle before he mounted.

   The triangle rang three times-twice. A
squad or group of guards rode down past the smithy and the tower, and
over Nylan’s short bridge and up the hill past the end of the
paving. As they vanished over the crest of the ridge, the triangle rang
again in triplets, and Nylan swung into the mare’s saddle and
started toward the pike emplacements.

   Another set of riders passed the tower,
and one turned her horse toward the laser emplacement, then changed her
direction toward Nylan.

   Behind her, the three newer guards
hurried across the meadows, followed by a man in black-Relyn.

   Nylan reined up and waited for Ryba.

   The marshal drew up beside him, and began
to speak. “The Lornians are forming up and beginning to march
toward the flat down on the other side of the ridge. The scouts say
that they’re two kays down past the flat.” The
marshal glanced toward the sun. “I’d guess it would
be after midmorning before they’ll be in your range. Longer
if we’re successful.”

   “Then I hope you are most
successful,” Nylan said.

   “We’ll see.
That’s something I don’t know. I’ll try
to send you messengers, if we have any to spare.” Her eyes
were bleak.

   “Don’t
worry,” he answered. “I’ll do what I
can.” As if I had tiny real choice at all, between you and
them.

   As Ryba spurred her horse back toward her
guards, Nylan glanced to the great forest beyond the steep eastern
cliff that dropped away in its nearly sheer fall. The forest was almost
a black outline against the morning sun, and Nylan’s eyes
rose to Freyja, glittering mercilessly in the cool and the clear
morning light.

   After a moment, he urged the mare up the
hill. Rather than dismount and risk revealing too much, just in case
the Lornians’ wizard could see what he did, he rode past each
post of the lower line slowly, letting his senses range over what he
had constructed. The weights and links seemed sound, and all the cords
were in place. Then he repeated the effort with the upper line before
easing the mare up to the crest of the ridge.

   All he saw on the northeastern side was
what he always saw. There were no massed bodies, no horse soldiers,
just grasses and road and trees.

   He squinted and studied the area to the
west. Perhaps there was a low cloud of dust rising above the trees that
bordered the wide meadows leading toward Westwind, but the trees
shielded his vision.

   After a time, he turned the mare and rode
back down the road and across the meadow to the laser.

   “See anything, ser?”
asked Huldran as he rode past the front of the quickly bricked
emplacement. “Some dust, I think, but it wasn’t
moving that fast.”

   “It never is,” said
Relyn, “unless it’s on the field and moving right
toward you. Then the horses and dust rush at you. At the same time, you
feel like they move so slowly.”

   Nylan reined up and tied the mare in
back, beside Huldran’s mount where she would be largely
sheltered from stray arrows or crossbow bolts or whatever missiles the
Lornians might employ. Then he checked the laser again.

   For a while, as the sun climbed, and he
began to sweat under the leathers, he walked back and forth. Then he
wandered out into the grass. Except for the six of them, the entire
Roof of the World appeared empty. The tower was barred and silent, and
even the insects seemed quieter than normal. Or was that his
imagination?

   “Why are battles always fought
on clear days?” asked Nylan to no one in particular as he sat
down in the narrow slit entry, his boots resting on packed clay that
had once been grass.

   “They are not,”
answered Relyn from the left side of the emplacement. “I have
fought in rain and mud. Not snow.”

   The smith-engineer nodded. Then he looked
at the man in black. After a time, he got up and walked back and forth
behind the silent and still unpowered laser. He looked at Relyn a
moment, then beckoned, and walked away from the emplacement, letting
the one-armed man follow. He stopped a hundred cubits out into the
meadow and turned.

   Relyn frowned. “What is
it?”

   “After this is over,
it’s time for you to leave-as soon as you can.”
Nylan glanced uphill, but nothing had changed.

   “The Angel?”

   Nylan nodded. “One way or
another, I won’t be in very good shape after this. Too much
killing is hard on me.” He met Relyn’s eyes.
“I promised. But don’t lay a hand on anyone, or
I’ll chase you to the demon’s depths.”

   Relyn shivered. “I would not,
not after all this. Not after what I owe you.” He shrugged,
then smiled bitterly. “First, we must triumph.”

   “Don’t prophets
always win?” Nylan gave a wry grin and walked back toward the
laser emplacement.

   Relyn followed more slowly, fingering his
chin with his left hand.

   Huldran glanced from Nylan to Relyn, then
just shook her head.

   Shortly, a small group of riders appeared
just over the crest of the hill, but turned their mounts to face the
other way, presumably down on the advancing Lornians. Nylan thought he
saw Ryba’s latest roan, but he couldn’t be quite
sure.

   Nylan was blotting his forehead, and even
Relyn had opened his jacket by the time a single rider cantered down
the road from the ridge. Nylan didn’t know her name, though
he had seen her in training, and she rode well.

   “Ser! The enemy is about a
third of the way up the ridge. The marshal said that she
won’t be able to send any more reports.”

   “Fine. Tell her to make sure
the field is clear when the enemy comes down. Do you understand
that?”

   The guard’s face crinkled.
“The field must be clear when the enemy comes down?”

   “The field must be clear of
guards when the enemy comes down.” Nylan corrected himself.
“Do you have it?”

   She repeated the words, and Nylan nodded.
Then she turned her mount and started back up toward the ridge.

   Relyn looked at Nylan’s face.
“You plan some terrible magic.”

   “It’s not magic. Not
mostly,” Nylan added as his head throbbed as if to remind him
not to lie, “but, if it works, it will be
terrible.” He muttered under his breath afterward,
“And if it doesn’t work, it’s going to be
terrible in a different way.”

   “What do you want us to
do?” asked one of the new guards.

   “When the engineer works his
magic,” answered Huldran, “his body will be here,
but his thoughts will not. Our job is to protect him from anyone who
would attack.”

   Nylan hoped no one got that near, but
somehow nothing worked quite the way it was planned in any battle. Or
in anything, he added mentally.

   As the faint and distant sounds of the
tumult mounted and purple-clad riders finally crested the ridge, Nylan
powered up the firm cell assembly-seventy-seven point five percent.
Could he smooth the flows for the fiery weapons head, the way he had
for the industrial laser heads?

   Another wave of purple riders reached the
ridge top, and the Westwind guards began falling back, drawing back
across the ridge top, sliding westward toward the road to the tower.

   The Lornian forces slowed where the pikes
should have triggered, but Nylan could not see what exactly had
occurred, except for the unseen whiteness that signified death and more
death.

   Nylan sent out his perceptions, his eyes
still on the hillside above. He could almost sense the Lornian
commander, the arrows falling around him as the man gestured with the
big blade. Idly, Nylan thought that he could have shot the man. Then he
nodded, and his stomach chilled into ice. Ryba had ordered her guards
not to kill him. She was not aiming for the defeat of the Lornians. She
wanted to keep the Lornian army whole and moving into the
laser’s range, and she was gambling on the laser and Nylan to
destroy them totally.

   “Damn you! Damn
you…” he muttered.

   Suddenly, as the Lornian forces began to
move again, to flow around the east end of the pike defenses, the
remaining visible guards seemed to peel off the hillside behind the
pike lines and ride westward toward the tower. The flow of arrows
dropped to a few intermittent shafts.

   Ryba reined up on the lower hillside,
just above Nylan’s bridge, and the remainder of the guards
did also-not much more than half a score. Even if some guards remained
in the rocks and in the ridge trees, casualties had been high-as usual.

   Nylan hadn’t seen Ayrlyn, not
since breakfast. Why did he keep thinking about her-because she was one
of the few that seemed to care about more than force? Because he had
come to care for her? He shook his head. The only thing he could do now
was use the laser. His thoughts traced the power lines, and slowly
smoothed out the fluxes and the swirls within the cells.

   Slowly, slowly, the black and purple mass
on the hillside continued to move, mostly westward, holding to the high
part of the ridge slope, although a lobe offerees seemed to swing
downhill.

   Nylan let his senses settle into the
laser, let himself feel the equipment again, as his eyes and senses
also measured the hillside, and he took a deep breath. More than a
third of the attackers remained shielded by the curve of the hill.

   “Why is he waiting?”
whispered a voice. “Leave him alone. He’s got to
get them all at once. Too many are hidden by the slope of the
hill,” hissed Huldran. As the sweat dripped from his
forehead, and he absently brushed it away from his eyes, Nylan
continued to watch, to sense. As the dark forces swelled and surged
across the hillside toward the thin line of guards, he waited.

   Finally, as he tasted salt and blood, he
triggered the laser, and the beam flared, and spread into a cast of
light that did nothing, just sprayed reddish light across the advancing
Lornians.

   “What’s with the
laser?” snapped Huldran. “We’ve got
power.”

   “The wizards. They’ve
got shields.” Nylan extended his senses toward the focal
point of the shields, stepping toward Huldran as he did.
“Ease it right, more, more. Hold it there!”

   White-faced, Huldran helped him ease the
laser eastward.

   The focal change failed to help, and
another flare of light lit the hillside, even as the Lornian forces
reached a point less than two hundred cubits from Ryba and the guards.

   “Shit!” He could
sense the interlocked shields of the two wizards on the hillside, and
his mind and fingers tried to tighten the focus of the beam, to swing
it right against those red-white shields.

   The energy in the firin cells seemed to
build, and Nylan could sense the surging power, surges with far more
energy than those cells could have possibly contained, as well as the
invisible hands of the white wizard, probing, jabbing.

   The engineer concentrated, ignoring the
nearing hoofbeats, ignoring the raging chaos in the power cells behind
him, trying to focus his energy and order into the thinnest, sharpest
needle of order and power.

   The white shields pulsed, and the needle
halted. Nylan concentrated harder, and the black needle probed at the
reddish-white shields, narrowing, narrowing. Nylan squeezed all the
firin cell energy into that needle, driving it, hammering like a smith
might hammer a needle-thin chisel against the joints in armor,
relentlessly probing.

   His eyes burned; his head felt like an
anvil he was using, as though each thrust of the laser and the chaos
somehow added by the white wizards rebounded back through him. His
fingers were locked on the laser, as though held there by an electric
current that flayed his nerves.

   Still, Nylan hammered the needle against
the white-red shields, forcing more and more power into that thrust,
more and more chaos, more and more disruption, fighting the chaos
backlash, and the lines of fire that felt as if they streamed from the
white wizards and fell like lashes across his mind and body.

   The shields of the white wizards wavered,
and Nylan eased every erg of energy, chaotic and nonchaotic, smoothing
it into an overwhelming tide of massed energy that cascaded against the
pulsing white shields of the struggling Lornian wizards.

   Something has to give… has
to… has to, thought Nylan as he strained against the
barriers that protected the Lornians.

   CRRUMMMMMPTTT!

   Energy flared across the Roof of the
World, and the sky shivered and the ground shook, and all three wizards
were clothed in flame and chaos. At that moment, Tower Black, rearing
mounts, guards, armsmen, and wizards were suspended in a timeless
instant-bathed in fire, bathed in chaos, bathed in order.

 

 

CXXVI

 

“LEAVE THE SIEGE engines at the bottom
there,” Sillek orders Viendros.

   Viendros nods, as does Koric from beyond
the Gallosian commander. If they can clear the field, then there will
be time for the engines. If not, they will never get close enough to
use them. The Gallosian rides back toward the lagging equipment.

   ‘ Arrows continue to fly from
the trees on the left, and from the rocky jumble on the right. Sillek
occasionally glimpses a slim figure retreating uphill as the Lornian
force, under the two differently shaded purple banners, continues
forward. The lancers advance almost in circles, keeping the horses
moving at angles and turning abruptly to cut down on the ability of the
angel archers to predict where the horsemen will be.

   The foot keep their small shields raised,
and many arrows either stick in the shields or bounce off. A fair
number penetrate defenses and bodies, and several dozen bodies sprawl
across the hillside behind the advance, as has been the case for kays.

   “Keep moving!” Sillek
orders. A flicker of something catches his eye, and he turns to see a
squad of fast-moving angels riding toward the lead lancers. Almost
before he can see what has happened, the angels have ridden farther
uphill and into the dark cover of the high firs.

   What Sillek can see are four or five
riderless mounts and a slight slowing of the advance.

   “Send a troop after
them!” he orders Koric.

   Koric looks puzzled.

   “They’ll do it again.
After the next quick attack send twice that many riders after
them.”

   “Ser…”

   “I know. Most of them will get
killed. But if we let them slow us down much more…
we’ll take even more losses from those damned
arrows.”

   “We could turn back.”

   Sillek laughs. “I
wouldn’t last two days if I brought back an army and no
victory.”

   “We could wait.”

   “Every day we’d lose
another hundred troops. How long would they stand it? How long before I
had no army?” He raises the sabre for emphasis.

   Koric nods reluctantly, then summons a
messenger, who rides around the main body and to the vanguard.

   Halfway up the long slope another squad
of angels darts from the woods, slashing at the left flank of the
lancers. Two squads of purple tunics race after them, catching one
trailing rider, and slashing her from her mount.

   The lancers slow, but do not stop as they
near the trees, then vanish.

   No one else attacks while the main force
slogs another three hundred cubits uphill, while Viendros rejoins
Sillek and Koric. Then a single mount staggers out of the trees, a
purple figure sagging in the saddle. No other lancers return.

   “Demons!” mutters
Koric. ‘They’re worse than the Jeranyi.“

   “Far worse,” agrees
Viendros.

   “Keep moving! Do the same thing
if they attack from the flank again. One more attack, and
we’ll have the crest.” Sillek turns to Terek.
“Is the crest still clear, Ser Wizard? No pits in the
ground?”

   Terek bounces in the saddle, then
answers. “No pits. I can sense that. The ground is solid, and
clear except for some posts. They look like they started to build some
fences. I saw them working on the fences days ago, but
they’re gone now. All that’s left are the posts.
Can your horsemen avoid them?”

   “How big are they?”

   “Like a tree trunk,
shoulder-high. I would say ten cubits apart.”

   “That shouldn’t be a
problem.” Sillek nods to Koric.

   “We need to charge them, to cut
them off,” says Viendros.

   Another squad of angel riders flashes
down to less than a hundred cubits from the advancing lancers, reins
up, where the riders draw short bows. The two dozen arrows almost wipe
out the front row of horsemen, and the advance slows. A second angel
squad appears on the right quarter, and also lets loose their arrows.

   “Shit…”
mutters someone. “No one shoots that hard from
horseback.”

   Sillek wants to agree, but looks at
Koric, then turns to Terek. “Are there any foot, any pikes,
anything like that on the hill crest or beyond?

   “Just the posts, ser.”

   “Koric,” Sillek
orders, “send all our lancers right after those riders. Clear
the hill crest!”

   “Yes, ser!” Koric
nods, and beside him the trumpet sounds, and sounds again.

   “Mine too, I think!”
snaps Viendros, and he spurs his horse uphill.

   Almost in insolence as nearly two hundred
lancers begin to trot forward, sabres at the ready, the angels wait,
and loose another horseback volley. Only a dozen riders stagger in
their saddles or fall, and the angels fall back. In fact, they gallop
away as though demons were pursuing them, and the lancers charge over
the hill crest, pressing their mounts.

   The hill seems to shiver, ever so
slightly. Then, a wave of screams, mostly horse screams, echoes down
the hillside.

   “What?” Sillek turns
to Terek.

   “A terrible hidden
thing…” stammers the wizard.

   “You said that there were no
pits, and that they had ridden over the entire hillside!”
Sillek rides around his own forces, ignoring the wizard and heading
over the hill crest, ignoring Koric and his own guards.

   As he crosses the crest, he reins in,
staring at the mangled remains of more than fifty horse impaled on the
line of pikes that had appeared from nowhere, suspended on heavy cross
poles from the so-called fence posts.

   Arrows start to fall once more, centered
on the foot trying to hack through or climb or slip through the pike
wall. Behind the pikes, those foot levies not struggling to chop the
wooden pikes clear of the stout frames are dragging bodies away from
the pike line. Yet the arrows, the demon-damned arrows, sleet down from
everywhere.

   Sillek waves to the first rank of the
foot. “Clear those pikes. Now! Clear them!”

   Viendros, from the western side of the
field, echoes the orders.

   Koric, riding hard, has caught up with
his lord, and he repeats the command.

   By standing in the saddle, Sillek can
make out a second line of posts, almost concealed in the high meadow
grasses beyond the lower grass of the ridge crest.

   “Stand down,” hisses
Koric. “You’re making yourself a target.”

   Sillek lowers himself into the saddle.

   “Charge again!”
demands Koric.

   “No! Not yet.” Sillek
twists in the saddle. “Terek! That second line of posts down
the hill. Burn down the post on the end. The last one. Turn it into
cinders.”

   The white wizard frowns.

   “Do it. There are more of those
demonish pikes attached there. You burn it, and we can sweep around
those defenses on the left side away from the tower and the
road.”

   “There are archers on that
side,” points out Koric.

   “There are archers everywhere,
it seems.”

   As Sillek and Koric talk, the two wizards
concentrate. Then one firebolt and another flash toward the big squat
post. The post remains standing.

   “Well?” asks Sillek.

   “It’s green wood,
ser, and it’s infused with order.”

   Another volley of the deadly arrows
sheets into the front ranks, and horses and men fall.

   “You sure they are only score
two?” rasps Koric.

   “They’re angels,
remember?” counters Sillek. “Do you want to fight
them when they’ve built up to score twenty?”

   Koric shakes his head.
“We’ll get them.”

   Another set of firebolts flare at the
post, and another.

   As the wizards work to destroy the lynch
post, as the foot levies and engineers hack away the barrier of pikes
and bodies, the arrows keep falling, and horses and men scream.

   Then one line of the crude angel pikes
falls, and another, and the remaining lancers start forward.

   “To the left!” yells
Koric, riding forward, and sending his remaining messengers out.

   The left end lynch post of the second
pike line crumbles into ashes, but the next line of pikes springs up to
the west of the last section, and a handful of angels sprint downhill
from behind the posts. A half-dozen overeager lancers spit themselves
on the second line of pikes, but one of the few crossbowmen slams a
bolt between the shoulder blades of a fleeing angel, and the woman
pitches headfirst into the grass.

   “One less evil
angel,” mutters Terek. Sillek studies the field, watching as
the remnants of the angels, a handful on foot, less than a score on
mounts, draw up on the new paved road above a new stone bridge, a thin
line between the advancing forces and the tower.
“It’s almost a pity,” he murmurs.
“A waste.”

   “Don’t feel sorry
now, My Lord,” rumbles Koric. Sillek shakes off the feeling
and sheathes the sabre. Then he pulls forth the great blade from the
shoulder scabbard, a blade as near a duplicate to his
father’s as he has been able to have forged.

   “Ser!” yells Terek.
“The wizard’s down there, in that little stone
fort, and he’s doing something.”

   “Well, undo it!”
snaps Sillek. “That’s your job.” He
glances over his shoulder to see that the last of his forces are clear
of the demonish pikes and ready for the assault on the remaining angels.

   The trumpet sounds, and the Lornian
forces move forward, a trot for the lancers, a quickstep for the foot,
ready at last to avenge all the hurts, the wounds, the deaths suffered
on this campaign into the cold and unfriendly Westhorns.

   Sillek raises his blade and rides
forward. So does Viendros.

   As they do, the hillside is bathed in red
light-a red light that burns faintly, as though the sun had grown
hotter, or Sillek had stood too close to the fire. The Lord of Lornth
turns in the saddle, not slowing, to see Terek and Jissek, almost
frozen in their saddles. Even Sillek can sense the immense forces that
surge between the two wizards and the small fort on the flat below.

   “Faster!” he yells to
Koric.

   Koric looks to the wizards, and then jabs
the bugler, and the quick advance call rings out over the hillside.

   Sillek gallops toward the angels, aiming
himself toward the tall black-haired woman.

   Another wave of red light flashes across
the downslope, and Sillek urges his mount forward, knowing he must
reach the angels quickly.

   The ground trembles.

   Sillek spurs his horse forward. Yet
another two hundred cubits separate him from the angel forces, and the
ground trembles again.

   Then, a single shriek and a dull rumbling
sound that lasts forever and yet is instantaneous cross the hillside,
and Sillek feels as though a mighty blade of fire and destruction slams
toward the hillside, toward him, as the heavens turn brilliant, burning
white, as the air sears hotter than noon in the Stone Hills.

   “Govern well,
Gethen,” whispers Sillek, and, as the incredible flare of
whiteness flashes out from that focal point around Terek and Jissek,
Sillek feels himself flaming, and he holds, for a moment, the images of
Zeldyan and Nesslek, even as his great sword melts in his hand, and he
with it.

   The hillside shudders, and a dull huge
clap echoes off the rocks and the surrounding higher peaks, echoes, and
reechoes, like a chain of images trapped in mirrors facing each other,
getting fainter and fainter, and stretching farther and farther away.
The earth tremors echo each other, and flashes of light, like whole-sky
lightning, blaze across the Roof of the World.

   Then… ashes fall like snow
across the hillside, burning like fire as they touch the dry grass west
of the devastation.

 

 

CXXVII

 

CRUUMPPTTT!!!

   The building of intertwined chaos and
order stretched and stretched through an endless and timeless moment,
then…

   A miniature sun-a green and gold
fireball-flared in the middle of the hillside below the ridge and east
of Tower Black, transforming the soldiers and horses around it into
statues of gray ash, then flattening those fragile shapes with its
shock wave. The incineration and flattening effect flared through those
Lornians farther away as the circle of destruction widened almost
instantaneously.

   For a fraction of an instant two
white-clad figures seemed to stand out against the tide of destruction,
as if standing on a crumbling cliff before a tsunami of chaos washed
over them, before they too flashed into fire and ashes.

   Nylan staggered, but continued to
concentrate on focusing the laser even as he felt that wave of
whiteness and mass death screaming toward him. With eyes already blind,
knives stabbing through his skull, he forced the last ergs of power
across the hillside, incinerating all that moved toward the road,
raising instant funeral pyres-and the shock waves echoed and reechoed
across the Roof of the World.

   Perhaps a handful of riders pounded
downhill toward the laser, toward the smith who wielded its dying
hammer against the remnants of the Lornian forces on the hillside.

   As Nylan shuddered under the first of the
chaos waves that battered him, clinging to the laser, the five lancers
charged the small fort.

   For a moment, nothing happened, as the
new guards stood stunned, eyes wide at the conflagration and shock
waves that had roared across the hillside, at the swirls of ashes and
flame, at the charred shapes heaped and tossed like burned limbs from a
wildfire, then swirled into less than ashes. At the outskirts of the
destruction, charred bodies tumbled into heaps.

   “Fight! Frig it!”
yelled Huldran, and her throwing blade cleared the wall and slammed
into a lancer’s shoulder.

   Then the others, the white-faced guards,
reacted, and three arrows flew, one striking another lancer.

   Relyn jumped before Nylan, and the short
blade he had once scorned flashed. The lancer fell.

   The smith-engineer sagged against the
burned-out laser, and his body still shook as the waves of unseen
whiteness hammered at him, as he twitched in the grip of chaos and
terror unseen to those beside him and around him.

   On the western fringe of the hillside
perhaps half the Westwind guards stirred, but nothing else moved,
except the fine ashes that rained across the Roof of the World, except
the last dying flames.

   The rapidly mushrooming storm cloud that
had begun to cover the entire sky, growing blacker by the moment,
swallowed the sun, and the dimness of an early twilight covered the
Roof of the World.

   Then Nylan’s legs collapsed as
he slid to the packed clay beside the tripod base of the laser.

   The single remaining Lornian lancer
spurred his horse northward and up the east side of the ridge. No one
pursued, and ashes and rain fell across the Roof of the World.

   Soon, so did thunder and rain and hail,
the hailstones falling and clumping in piles, white as bleached bones,
cold as death.

 

 

CXXVIII

 

“RYBA, THE LEAST of the rulers of angels, thus
became the last of the rulers, and the angels, having fallen from the
stars after the time of the great burning, came unto the Roof of the
World, where they had descended on the winds from Heaven.

 

   “There, in the tower called
black, builded by the great smith Nylan at the behest of Ryba, there
they took shelter and gathered their strength together, and abided
until the winter should lift.

 

   “Yet since then, upon the Roof
of the World, as a memory of the fall of the angels, winter yet remains.

 

   “When the first great winter
had passed, then Nylan the smith builded yet another forge, a forge of
men, not of Heaven, and with hammer and anvil, forged yet more of the
black blades of death, the twin swords of Westwind, and after that,
forged he the bows of winter, small enough to be carried on horse and
powerful enough to split plate armor, and Ryba the angel was pleased.

 

   “Then, as prophesied by the
demons, then came those men who were the descendants of the ancient
demons, and with their fires of chaos, fell they upon the angels, for
the descendants of the demons were fair determined to drive the angels
from the world, and to ensure that no woman should prevail, nor rule
herself nor others.

 

   “The lightnings were cast
against the tower called black, yet that tower held fast against the
lightnings of chaos, and against legions of armsmen more vast than the
flow of the great rivers, more numerous than the locusts.

 

   “When she determined that the
men who assaulted Westwind were of the demons, with a great sigh, Ryba
reclaimed the fires of winter and with those fires and with the black
blades of Nylan that were sharper than the edge of night, she and her
angels smote the demons. They destroyed all but one, and drove him into
the east, leaving none upon the Roof of the World.

 

   “So after that time, whenever
angels departed the Roof of the World, whether unto the southlands or
the western ways, they carried forth the message of Ryba: Remember
whence you came, and suffer not any man to lead you, for that is how
the angels fell…”

       
 Book of Ryba

        
Canto 1, Section II

        
[Original text]

 

 

CXXIX

 

NYLAN WOKE, BUT could not move. His face burned, and his eyes
stabbed so much he could neither open them, nor see. He listened, and
even the words fell on him like hammers, most rebounding, their meaning
lost in the force of their impact.

   “… not a mark on
him…”

   “… more than that in
him… who else… strong enough to hold a thousand
deaths…”

   “… it’s
all in his mind… guards died…”

   Ryba’s words-“guards
died”-stabbed through his ears, and he would have lifted his
hands to close them, but could move neither hands nor head, and again
he sank, not into darkness, but into a sea of white chaos that burned
his body and soul, into a river of fire that flared from the sky he
could not see and singed his body like an ox upon a slowly turning spit.

   An ox, he thought, a dumb ox…
and then, for a time, he thought no more.

   Cool cloths bathed his face when he awoke
again, if indeed it were the second time, for that was what he
remembered.

   Blinding light flared through his eyes,
tightly squeezed shut as they were.

   “Are you awake,
Nylan?” asked a husky voice-Ayrlyn’s voice.

   He started to nod, but white needles
stabbed through his brain, and instead he rasped,
“Yes,” afraid to move his head. Even thinking hurt,
each thought like a thin knife.

   “You need to drink, or
you’ll die. I’m going to put a cup to your mouth.
Don’t worry if you get wet.”

   Nylan eased his mouth open, and
swallowed, then opened and swallowed, ignoring the unseen white knives
that slashed his face but left no marks, just pain. Some little of the
blinding agony eased as he drank, as the water ran across his cheeks
and chin, as Ayrlyn softly blotted away the dampness, a dampness
welcome for its cooling.

   “In a bit, you’ll
need more.”

   “All…
right… now.”

   He drank more, and the dryness in his
throat subsided, and he slept, still flayed with red-tinged white whips
that left no marks, but scarred his sleep and soul.

   Over the next uncounted days, he drank
and slept and drank and slept, and finally ate, until one morning, he
could finally leave the single lander couch with Istril’s and
Ayrlyn’s help and sit in the rocking chair that had been
moved beside the couch for him.

   But the pain and glare were so bright
when he tried to open his eyes that he nearly doubled over.

   “Ooooo… I even felt
that,” said Ayrlyn quietly.

   “So did I,” added
Istril. “I think it will be a while before you want to try to
see again.”

   “What’s
wrong?”

   “We don’t
know,” admitted Ayrlyn. “You ought to be able to
see, but whatever you did with that laser had a backlash, and
it’s not exactly psychological-it had an effect on your
entire nervous system. It should wear off, but it’s going to
be eight-days or longer, maybe years before the pain leaves
totally.”

   Nylan didn’t want to deal with
that, not then, not ever, but it didn’t seem like he had much
choice. “Where am I?”

   “You’re on the other
side of the sixth level. Ryba was afraid that Dyliess would disturb
you, and here was the best place. Also, with her shattered
arm-”

   “Shattered arm?”

   “Flying debris,”
Ayrlyn said dryly. “Everything was either blown off that part
of the hill or turned to ashes.”

   “What’s
left?” he asked.

   “Away from the hill above the
tower… most everything,” Istril answered.
“We had another rush of women. We’re short of
trained guards, but there are more than enough bodies to keep things
going. Saryn’s working on training, and Siret and ‘
Weindre are helping. Huldran’s trying to forge the pieces for
the sawmill, and in time we might be able to sell timber or planking.
Blynnal’s found another cook, and the food is better
yet.”

   “I have noticed
that.”‘Nylan paused. “What about
Fierral?”

   The silence gave the answer.

   “Who else?”

   After a moment, Istril answered.
“Denalle, Selitra, Quilyn-those are the ones you
knew.”

   “So…”
Nylan tried to count them all in his head. “We landed with
thirty. We have nine left. Great survival ratio.”

   “It’s better than
everyone dying in orbit,” said Ayrlyn.

   “Or being a slave,”
added Istril.

   “What a wonderful world. What a
wonderful life…” He stopped.
“Don’t mind me. It’s just hard. Darkness,
it’s hard.” His mouth and throat were dry, and
though he swallowed, they remained dry.

   Ayrlyn’s hand touched his, and
he was surprised at the warmth, and the huskiness in her voice.
“We know.”

   “We know,” echoed
Istril.

   Later, as he rocked slowly in the chair,
steps echoed through the white darkness that enshrouded Nylan, hard
firm steps that Nylan recognized as Ryba’s.

   In the darkness, he might be able to open
his eyes for a few moments before the pain became too great, and, in
time, he supposed, his normal vision might return. But he preferred to
keep his eyes closed when he had no immediate need to see, and he had
no need or any desire to look upon Ryba.

   “How’s your
arm?” he asked.

   “Ayrlyn says it will heal
straight. So does Istril. She’s giving up the blade, except
as necessary in emergencies, to be a healer. She had to. Ayrlyn was
down for quite a while.”

   “I thought that might
happen.” Eyes still closed, he massaged his temples, and then
his neck, hoping that would help relieve the pain. “What else
is new in the sovereign domain of Westwind?”

   “I’m sending Lord
Sillek’s blade back, and his ring-a bit melted around the
edges-that was all we could find in that mess. With them go some fancy
language. It’s an effort to make peace-in return for keeping
the Westhorns, this part, anyway, clear of bandits.” Ryba
cleared her throat, and Nylan could sense that she leaned against the
lander couch.

   “Will it work?”

   “Yes,” Ryba said
calmly. “Lord Karthanos has already sent an envoy disavowing
the use of his troops and a small chest of golds as a payment for our
efforts to maintain the Westhorns, as he put it, ‘clear of
any impediments to travel and trade.’ ”

   “Convenient to blame poor dead
Lord Sillek. He probably wasn’t even a bad sort,”
Nylan said. “Like a lot of us, he probably just got pushed
into a situation from which there wasn’t any
escape.”

   “He was bad enough to kill a
lot of guards, and bad enough to lose an entire army. That will do for
me, thank you. And anyone who lets himself be pushed into that kind of
situation probably shouldn’t be running a country.”

   “We didn’t do much
better. Nine out of thirty, isn’t it? And how many of those
who came to us are dead?”

   “It’s better than the
alternative. Over time, probably only you, Saryn, and Ayrlyn could have
survived in the lowlands. The rest of us were all Sybran.”

   “That’s true. We
didn’t have too many good alternatives, and the locals left
us even less choice.” Nylan didn’t feel like
arguing, not when he knew there was no purpose to be served. Not when
he knew that Ryba was right. Right she might be, but again, he realized
he wanted to be neither captain nor marshal. Apparently, neither he nor
poor dead Lord Sillek had any business running a country-or a ship-not
when men and women only respected force and always wanted more.

   “And your friend Relyn
disappeared right after the battle. He was considerate, though. He took
a Lornian horse and not a thing from us. You warned him,
didn’t you?”

   “Yes.”

   “I trust we don’t
live to see his new faith threaten us all,” Ryba said tiredly.

   “It won’t.”
Nylan could feel that it wouldn’t; despite his threats to
Relyn, he’d felt that way for seasons. Relyn needed the faith
of order, and others would, too.

   “I hope you’re as
good a prophet as an engineer.”

   So did Nylan, but instead of admitting
that openly, he asked the question to which he already knew the answer.
“Would you mind if I just turned this side of the tower into
my quarters for now?”

   “No. I wondered when
you’d ask.”

   Nylan heard the sadness, and the
acceptance, and the inevitability in her voice, and he nodded, saying,
“I know you did what had to be done, and I did what I did in
full knowledge.” But it hurts, and it always will, and every
time I open my eyes for the rest of my life, I’ll know what I
did, and you don’t even understand why I did it.

   “You’ll go down as
one of the great ones, Nylan, and you’re a good man, but you
still don’t accept that the world is governed by force. Cold
iron is master of them all.”

   “Now,” he agreed,
without opening his eyes. “Now.” But we can try to
change that, and that’s worthwhile.

   “Always,” answered
Ryba. “Always.”

 

 

CXXX

 

ZELDYAN ENTERS THE tower room, flanked by Gethen and Fornal.
All wear white armbands, and the faces of all three are stern. They
glance toward the alcove.

   Lady Ellindyja rises, setting the
embroidery on the far end of the bench. “Your
Grace.” Her eyes fix on the blond woman, as if
Zeldyan’s father and brother were not present.

   “My lady Ellindyja, and
grandmother of my son, I came to wish you well in your time of grief
and loss.” Zeldyan offers a head bow, one which is but the
minimal formality.

   “Your courtesy does you well,
inasmuch as your grief must be even greater than mine own to have lost
a mate and a lover and your son’s father all at
once.”

   “Great is my grief, as is
yours. Yet I thought of you, and of how painful it must be for you to
remain here, where you have lost so much.” Zeldyan takes one
step beyond those of her father and brother, so that she stands that
much closer to Ellindyja.

   “This little is all I
require.” Ellindyja’s eyes harden. “And I
trust, regents of Lornth, that you will not take this from
me.”

   “As regents, we must look to
the welfare of Lornth, and ensure that the gains made by Lord Sillek
are preserved for his heir and his people.”
Zeldyan’s voice is smooth, almost soft. “He
sacrificed much to the cause of Lornth, and I would not see that
squandered.”

   “You are all so devoted to
Lornth. So devoted that you ensured that the one who showed the
greatest concern would not be considered as one of my son’s
son’s regents.” Ellindyja turns her eyes on the
gray-haired Gethen.

   He does not flinch, and his gaze is
steady as he answers. “That decision was his, My Lady. You
know that. Know also that we, and the holders, agree in that decision.
Those same holders also felt that the gains attained from the
acquisition of Rulyarth should not be jeopardized by any effort to
reclaim the wilderness on the Roof of the World.”

   “Wilderness now? I can recall
when the area was prime summer pasturage. And when they were screaming
to reclaim it.”

   “Wilderness,” affirms
Gethen. “My losses there have matched yours, and the holders
scream no longer.”

   “Your losses are nothing as to
what will happen to Lornth if those angels are not driven back to
whence they came.”

   “There are times,
lady,” returns Zeldyan, “when the wisest course is
to recognize what is. For a modest sum from us-”

   “One might term it
tribute.”

   “-they have agreed to maintain
the new borders and to ensure the peace in the Westhorns.”

   “Whatever one calls it, the
service is worth the price,” adds Fornal. “They
have destroyed every raiding band in their territory, and they have
made the mid-Westhorn road the preferred trading route from Gallos.
Already the traders are talking of doubling their runs and using
Rulyarth instead of Armat.”

   “Those women will destroy
Lornth.”

   “Attempting to defeat them has
nearly destroyed us already,” answers Gethen.
“Karthanos has disavowed his agreements, and without the
buffer of Westwind, we would be hard-pressed to hold
Rulyarth.”

   “Westwind? You have recognized
this… bastard… tabletop… a place that
has less than score two in their keep?”

   “The number is more like
fivescore now,” says Fornal dryly. “With a mere
twoscore, they destroyed more than two thousand armsmen. Would you care
to lead the next force, Lady?”

   “Do not be unkind,
Fornal,” says Zeldyan. “Lady Ellindyja has suffered
deeply, as have we all. As have many of her old friends.”
Zeldyan bows deeply, cutting off the discussion, her high-collared
tunic severe against her chest and beneath her silver-corded hair and
coronet. “The world should see more of you, Lady
Ellindyja.”

   “I have no desire to see more
of the world.”

   “Alas…”
Zeldyan inclines her head slightly. “For the sake of Lornth,
and for the sake of your son’s son, the time has come for you
to be seen in the world.”

   “You would take what little
that remains to me?”

   “The world would take it, Lady.
You may leave of your choice or face a hearing of holders, who may not
be so generous.” Ser Gethen bows.

   “A hearing of mongrel
landowners?”

   Fornal takes a half step. “I
lost my brother to your devices. My sister has lost her lord, who
wished not to face the witches of heaven, and you sit here and deny
your schemes, the ideas you placed?”

   Gethen extends a hand. “We wish
you the best, Lady. My lady Erenthla bids you join her in
Carpa.”

   “Oh, a gilded prison,
now?”

   Gethen shrugs. Zeldyan’s eyes
harden, as do Fornal’s. All three stand like crags of the
Westhorns-looming over a field to be stripped and turned.

   Ellindyja bends and picks up the
embroidery. “Never let it be said that I would stand in the
way of Lornth. And it has been a long time since I have talked to
Erenthla.”

   She nods to the three. “I will
make ready.”

   EPILOGUE

   NYLAN EASED OPEN the south door to Tower
Black one-handed, carrying Dyliess in his right arm. He stepped out
into the dampness. To the south, all but the base of Freyja was
shrouded in the heavy clouds, but even the lower cliffs that Nylan
could see were already sheathed in snow.

   For a moment, the smith and mage rested
his cheek against his daughter’s forehead, ignoring the
questing fingers that pulled at his ears. He let his eyes fall on the
small brick fort-now empty-that had held the laser, and the rows of
cairns in the southeast corner of the Roof of the World, cairns from
which bloodflowers had sprouted and half wilted.

   Despite the fine mist that dropped from
the dark clouds, mixed with the smallest of ice flakes, Nylan walked
out across the causeway. There he turned and forced himself to look up
to the ridge.

   The paved section of the road nearly
reached the ridge crest, and the darker hues of the newer stones showed
the progress made since the battle. A pile of unused stones stood at
the end of the paved section, waiting to be used to transform more mud
and clay into an all-year road.

   Nylan’s eyes slowly moved
eastward across the hillside. In the damp late autumn air, after the
rains, the black and white had faded into gray, and a few sprigs of
fireweed had sprouted, along with some grass.

   For a moment, he closed his eyes, then
opened them. The expanse that had been seared by the laser remained
gray, faded gray.

   He supposed everything faded in time. And
in time, new life filled in for the old. He disengaged
Dyliess’s fingers from his earlobe and held them, his green
eyes meeting his daughter’s green eyes.

   Behind him, he heard the tower door open
and close, but he continued to stand on the damp stones of the road,
ignoring the small, sharp knives in his eyes, holding Dyliess and
taking in the sodden gray ashes that had been flame and fire, man and
mount, green and grass.

   Then he turned to see who had followed
him.

   Ayrlyn, red hair as intense as the gray
ashes were dull, crossed the causeway, carrying Weryl. She smiled.
“He wanted to see where you had gone. So I brought
him.”

   Nylan smiled at the healer who had begun
to heal him, and they turned back and looked once more at the gray
hillside, framed by rock and tree, where life again had begun to sprout.

 

 

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., lives in Cedar City, Utah.

 

TOR BOOKS BY L. E. MODESITT, JR.

 

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10 Magi’i of Cyandor

11 Scion of Cyandor

 

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In Endless Twilight

 

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